Fate Loves the Fearless
by Crysania
Summary: It's been tradition to foretell the future of those in Maurice's family for as long as he can remember. When the fairies read Belle's future they see great darkness there: she will bear the Dark One a child. At her father's request, the fairies seal her in a tower from which she can never leave. Rumplestilskin knows, however, that there's something he wants in that tower.
1. Prologue

_A/N: Special thanks goes out to the Anonymous Tumblr user who gave me a prompt that led to this story. I wish I knew who you were!_

* * *

Sometime in the last fortnight the weather had changed from summer to autumn. Treading carefully, listening to the crunch of the leaves beneath his boot heels, he made his way to the clearing where he knew that _she_ would be waiting. Once, long ago, she told him things. Things about his life that he was perhaps better off not knowing. Things that had altered the course of his life and left him _here_. He had great power, the ability to do almost anything his mind wished, but he was alone. His son, the only person in the entire world who had ever loved him was gone. Vanished without a trace to another world that the fairy had sent him to. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. He had cheated fate, maimed himself on the battlefield to make sure his son wasn't left fatherless as _she_ had said he would be. And now, some fourteen years later, fate had finally caught up to him. It was the price he had to pay, apparently, for the magic he had taken on to protect his child. _All magic comes with a price_. That was what he said, the Dark One before him. He had taken that phrase on with the absolute fervor of one who didn't truly understand what it meant.

He understood it now.

"You can come out, dearie." She was here…somewhere. She had answered his call, one magical being to another. She would not leave him waiting, would not leave him wanting. She would come, answer his questions. And if she so much as led him astray even by an _inch _he would end her. He had the ability to. The first time they met he was just a poor spinner but _she_ had led him down this path and _she_ would pay, maybe even with her life.

"Rumplestiltskin." The voice came from the distance, from behind a tree and then she appeared. She was older than before and somehow that struck him as surprising. He had changed so little over the years, having gained immortality that would keep him at this age for all eternity. She was just a child when he had been asked to watch over her. Mysterious and strange, she was supposed to turn the tide of the war. But she hadn't. She had disappeared after leaving him with her strange prophetic words and no tide had been turned. The war had raged on until he, the new Dark One, had walked out into the fields and simply stopped it, sending the ogres back to their crowded little island and sending the children home to their weeping parents. For just a moment, he had been heralded as a hero. He had walked off the battlefield to cheering. The children had followed at his heels, his Baelfire proudly walking at his side. He had _been_ something. For the first time in his life he had _mattered_ to people. And then, little by little, that had been eroded.

He approached quickly, hand reaching out, intending to grasp her around the neck. He couldn't quite do it though. "You lied to me, demon." The words came out on a hiss.

She held up her hands, palms toward him. The eyes that were in her palms, not where they should be on any human, blinked open and were as startling as they were so many years ago, when he knew nothing of such magical creatures. He took a slight step back and watched a smile ghost across her patchwork face. "All I told you was truth." Her voice echoed through the clearing, the wind moving in sympathy with the words.

He raised a hand, such a simple gesture for one who was not steeped in dark magic. The demon woman gasped, raising a hand to her neck, but not being able to touch it. The power of his mind was greater than she was. He squeezed his hand together just slightly. Let her know the power he wielded, the power she forced him to take to protect his own.

"My son is gone." He growled the words out. It had been only a scant few days since his son had disappeared into a swirling green vortex, a portal to another world of which he knew nothing. The fairy had played his son well, trying to send them both to a place where his magic would hold no sway.

She gasped her next words out, fighting to speak through the feel of his phantom hand at her neck. "He has been left fatherless. This I told you would come to pass."

He snarled at her and the magic let her go, his anger too great to keep his will in check. He still had little control over it, allowing it to sometimes fly completely out and away from him. The magic had killed, sometimes even when he did not intend it to. The magic now left him when the rage took hold and so he leapt forward, grasping her about the throat with his bare hand and applying the same pressure. "You left out a few details along the way." His voice was harsh and unyielding.

"My gift…" She could say little else.

"Yes yes I know. Your _gift_. Apparently your gift is anything but. Why did you do this to me? Do you see what I've become?" He released her and walked away, saw her sink to her knees out of the corner of his eye. _Did_ she see? Everything that had come to pass was because of that one fateful meeting. Sometimes he wasn't sure if he would rather have died on that battlefield. Baelfire would have grown up without him, but would that have been worse than having him there? The coward? The lame spinner? The Dark One who everyone ran from in fright? Oh yes, Baelfire would have been better off without him. Maybe his mother would have stayed with him if she had been a war widow instead of the woman who was scorned because she was lashed to the town coward. Oh how she had loved to tell him that, call him that, ridicule him. Baelfire had seen it all of course and had Milah not disappeared when he was still a young child, she no doubt would have turned the boy against him. He had not had the good sense to be embarrassed by his father until the very end, until he had taken on these powers, powers that were still yet beyond his total control.

"Rumplestiltskin…"

He turned back to her. She looked so small kneeling on the ground where he had left her. Small enough to crush into oblivion with just one nearly insignificant motion of his hand. He raised that hand, so full of power he barely understood and pointed at her.

She warded him off with her own hands, standing and raising them high and allowing the eyes to open, those eyes that could see at least some portion of the future. He reeled back slightly. The blue changed to red and then back to blue, flickering a few times before she drew the hands back to herself.

"You will find your son." The winds picked up slightly as she spoke. She was a part of nature and yet not, this strange magical demon. She had been born of the wind and rain, pulled together from elements of the very earth itself and yet something was pulled into her from somewhere else, another realm. Here she could see bits of the future, here she could command only some of the elements of the world. Where she came from, a place where her powers were at their height, she could see all, command all. She was weak here, far weaker than he was now.

"I will…"

She held her hands out again, the eyes opening briefly. "You _will_ find him. A young woman will lead you to him." He started to scoff, though there was some sort of hope deep inside his heart. His son still lived. He would find him. Somehow, some way…

"Who is she?"

The woman threw her hands out in front of her. The eyes blinked once, twice, then closed. "I do not know," she whispered, the winds dying down with her quiet voice.

"Tell me!" he shouted, hand coming back out to grasp her about the neck. "You will tell me what I want to know! I will not be tricked again!"

"No tricks, Rumplestiltskin." He loosened his hold slightly, but kept his hand on her. She brought up no hands to stop him, simply stood loosely in his grasp, her eyeless face turned toward him so closely that he was almost sure she could see him despite the lack of eyes. "She _will_ reunite you with your son. But beware, Rumplestiltskin. She is far more than she seems."

She pulled away from him, turned to walk away. "Oh no, that's not all you're giving me this time, you little demon." He rushed forward and grabbed her by one arm, hauled her back. "More…I need more. How is she more than she seems? Who is she?"

"I do not know." The seer shook her head, red hair flying out about her as the wind picked up. "I see only pieces."

"You see much more!"

"Here," she said, holding out her hands to him, palms up. The unsettling eyes stared at him, unblinking in their madness. "Take my gift from me, use it yourself to see all. When you do, you will know."

He hesitated for a moment. He could barely keep control of his own so-called "gift." Could he take this, her ability to see into the future, and put it to use? "Gladly." He joined his hands to hers.

The pain was almost immediate and overwhelming. It started as a burning sensation in the palms of his hands and radiated upward through his arms, racing down his torso and legs. The wind around them rose up into a swirling vortex, the demon's hair flying out about them in a sea of red. Behind his eyes swirled images he could make nothing of, faces he didn't recognize, a flash of dark brown hair, of blue eyes, a castle, darkness sweeping across the mountains. They moved quickly, a show of pictures that were nothing but a jumbled mess and made no sense. "I can't see _anything_."

"Now you know." He felt more than heard the words.

And then everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 1

The birth of Sir Maurice's daughter had gone about his smoothly as anyone could expect for a young mother's first time. His wife had felt the first contractions sometime in the wee hours of the morning, calling out to him from her nearby room. He had taken to leaving his own door open with explicit instructions to his staff to not invade his private space while he was resting. They kept well enough away, but close enough to hear his call. And he was close enough to hear the call of the lady of the castle when the baby was coming.

He had rushed out of bed, still in his nightclothes and bellowed for the midwife. Maurice was rarely a loud man, choosing instead to rule with a quiet sternness that often got him what he wanted quicker than shouting did. So when he made a ruckus, people listened. Before he could even turn back to his room, people had jumped into action, the women of the castle bringing clean sheets and water, one knight rushing out into the cool night to fetch the midwife. They all coordinated perfectly, each part falling into its place.

His man had dressed Sir Maurice quickly, little worry put to the state of his outfit. No one but the servants would see him this evening and so it mattered not at all what he looked like.

When they came to fetch him later, there was only one concern. "Healthy, yes," the midwife, a broken and bent older woman answered. "She's healthy and hale. You have a daughter sir, a beautiful baby girl. Mother and child are well." Maurice had breathed a sigh of relief, not even realizing he was holding his breath. "Won't you come up and see the Lady Simone?"

Maurice nodded, rising to his feet. It wasn't entirely tradition for the man to come see the mother so soon after the birth, but Maurice had seldom worried about such traditions. He had been born the fourth son of a wealthy knight. His lot in life was to serve his people well in times of war and to protect them in times of peace. He had few plans except to marry a lovely young lass and do his job well. Then the plagues had struck and his older brothers had fallen one after another, his father falling alongside them. Only Maurice, somehow the most hale of the group, had been left standing at the end. The duchy went to him in a small quick ceremony and suddenly at the tender age of seventeen he was their leader. He had met Simone a scant few years later and though their relationship was a secret for a time, he finally asked her to marry him and presented her to the council. It turned out his idea for a proper wife and his council's was somewhat different and so the discussions about finding him a proper wife to rule the duchy with had begun. The arguments had raged on for more years than he would have liked to really think about and it wasn't until his twenty-seventh year that he finally had had enough and married Simone in a quiet ceremony. Only one of the council members had attended.

"Simone," he choked out as he entered the room, kneeling at his wife's side. He was pleased to see her looking well, though wan and tired. Her blond hair was plastered to the sides of her face and one of the women carefully mopped her brow with cool water. The babe was pressed to her breast, half hidden behind a small blanket.

"My husband, you have a daughter." Her voice was soft, musical and her blue eyes bright with both elation and exhaustion.

"_We_ have a daughter, my love. _A daughter_." He leaned over and she turned the baby toward him. "She's beautiful."

Simone smiled. "Hold her?" And suddenly he found himself with a bundle of tiny infant in his arms. She was so small, so fragile, with just a light dusting of dark fuzz on her head. Her face was slightly red, scrunched up, her eyes closed as she slept peacefully after her first feeding.

"She looks like me, I think," Simone said.

Maurice looked back down at the baby. "How can you tell?" Babies were somewhat beyond his ken. She looked as most babies he met did: small, pink and wrinkled. But he would not begrudge his wife her indulgence.

"I just know." Her smile was serene and he sincerely hoped she did resemble his wife. Simone was beautiful in an almost otherworldly way. Petite without being frail, graceful and quiet of movement. She was entrancing to watch and the entire village was in love with her and looked up to her as the paragon of virtue and beauty.

"What shall we name her, my love?" They had been contemplating many names over the past few months, rarely agreeing on one. Brigitte or Florine if it had been a girl, Alexandre or Julien if it had been a boy. But other names had been bandied about over that time, some that were outright refused ("I will not name my son Thibault!") and others they both laughed at ("Agathe? Really? Who would saddle a girl with such a name?").

Simone looked down at the daughter still nestled in Maurice's arms and smiled. "Belle. I think we should call her Belle."

The name, Maurice realized, was perfect. "Belle," he whispered to the fragile little bundle.

* * *

Three days later, one of Maurice's advisors found him holed up in his study, examining the books for the village. They were fairly prosperous but Maurice was always the sort to make sure that they remained so. "Sir, the Lady Simone is requesting your presence."

He smiled. His wife could be imperious when life demanded it. She may have been a commoner, just the daughter of a poor grain merchant, but she knew her new station in life and she had taken to it easily. Never unkind to the people around them, she simply knew how to get what she wanted without ever making people feel like she was giving the demands she was.

"Yes yes of course." He was shown quickly to her chambers and found her resting comfortably in bed. The past day's respite had restored her color and her maid had washed and brushed her hair, plaiting it into one long braid that kept it away from the prying fingers of infants.

"How is our dear Belle doing?" he said upon entering the room.

"She's well. Eating like a horse and faring well. The wet nurse was here. She insists she take over her feedings and let me 'get back to my life.' I sent her home."

Maurice smiled. "Of course you did. I'm surprised anyone sent her here."

"Well, you know Annette. Always a mother hen." Annette ran their household and ran it well, but she had ideas about the way children should be raised in a noble household that could not be shaken, not even by the very determined Simone.

"So my love, what is it you need of me? Entertainment? A break from our lovely daughter?"

"No, none of that my dear Maurice." Her voice sounded light but there was a seriousness to her eyes that he wasn't sure he liked seeing. "It's time you know."

He sighed. "I know. I don't like it…"

"It's tradition." The words had a slight edge.

"It doesn't have to be," he shot back immediately. Tradition. Oh how he hated that word. When he was a baby, they had called in the patron fairy of their family. She had been their patron for as long as anyone could remember, going back generations. Every time a child was born in their family, she was called upon to lay her hands on the child and give the parents a glimpse of her future. Magenta, the only name they knew her by as fairy names were a deeply held secret amongst the sisterhood, was one of the seer fairies. She could not see all, but soon after a child's birth she was able to find something important in that child's future. When she had laid her hands on Maurice she had spoken of a future filled with greatness. _This one will one day rule with a kindness and warmth rarely seen. But he will rule early, too early. _He grew up with the prophecy, knowing he would likely marry early and govern a nearby duchy. None could have imagined his losing nearly his entire family when he was just a teen, being forced into ruling the duchy he was born into far before he ever felt ready to.

He didn't blame the fairies, for he knew it wasn't their fault. But still, the thought that he could hear something pleasant about his daughter and find out many years later it was not pleasant at all had been plaguing his thoughts in the days since her birth.

"Dear," his wife said and placed her hand over his fidgety one. "Whatever will happen _will_ happen. It can't be bad to have some idea. And it's tradition."

"It's not _your_ tradition," he muttered.

"No. It's yours. And Belle deserves to be a part of that tradition."

He closed his eyes briefly, turning his hand in his wife's and squeezing gently. "You're right. I'll call on her."

He left his wife and tiny daughter alone then to retreat to his study and sulk before he got up the nerve to call on the fairy.

* * *

The fairy had been contacted in the ages old way that those before Maurice had contacted her. He had a mirror, tucked away in one drawer of his great desk in his study. It allowed him to communicate with the patron fairy of his family if need be. He hadn't yet seen the need and so the mirror had remained hidden in a safe place. No one but he and Simone knew of its existence or what it could be used for. He had liked knowing it was there if they ever had need of a bit of fairy magic, a sort of fail-safe in case some dire emergency struck.

He knew of some families in nearby duchies who called on their fairies for nearly everything, from crops failing to barren women to aid in the birth of an ailing cow. He refused such uses of magic, instead using hard work and his brain to make his duchy successful and those who lived there prosperous.

So when he pulled out the mirror, felt the spark of magic within it, he was somewhat taken aback and very nervous. He had whispered her name into the glass and watched it ripple slightly. He had hoped that she would not come to the mirror and that he could go back to his wife and tell her the fairy had gone missing.

But reply she did, her face swimming slightly in the shimmering glass. _I will be there in three days time_. And then she had disappeared, the glass still once more.

On the third day, he had found himself in his great throne room surrounded by his advisors. His wife joined them shortly and baby Belle was put in a place of honor. He had forgotten about the basinet that all babies of his family lay in when the fairy came.

After all had assembled it was only a matter of a few minutes before a bright purple light came in through the window. A moment later, the scattered light coalesced into a small being who flew through the room to land on the floor near the basinet. And before they could blink, the fairy was standing in front of them in full size. With a shake, she banished her wings and stepped forward.

Magenta turned her dark eyes on the assemblage, a smile finally alighting upon her face. She was tall in human form, thin, dressed in a floating dress the color of her namesake that came to just above her high-heeled boots. Her skin was dark, only a few shades lighter than her black hair and nearly black eyes. She moved with a grace that no human had, even wingless and human-sized as she was.

She strode quickly to the basinet and reached out one hand to lightly stroke the infant's cheek before turning back to those who had assembled for her arrival. "So you have called me here to tell you about her future." Magenta's voice was soft, musical. Any who heard it could not help but he drawn in.

Maurice stepped forward. "Yes." His voice sounded loud in the near silence of the large room.

The fairy turned her eyes on him and her smile lit up even further. "Maurice, you have grown up well. And as predicted, you have ruled well and fairly." She waved one hand around the room. "Your duchy is prosperous and you have not called on me once." She made a slight tisking noise at the last. "Why is that I wonder?"

Maurice had the good grace to look at least a little bit sheepish in the fairy's presence. "Well…I…"

"I know. The prophecy." Her lips turned up in a small indulgent smile. "You're afraid of the same now."

"I am."

"Then why am I here?" The fairy cocked her head slightly to the side.

"Tradition," the Lady Simone said, speaking up at least. "I wish to know at least a bit of my child's future, whatever it may be."

"Then you shall know, my child." She stepped forward and placed one hand lightly on the infant's forehead. "She will be beautiful. Dark hair, blue eyes. Her name is appropriate." She stopped and looked briefly at the happy parents.

"The future?" Maurice asked, a nervous note to his voice.

"Yes, of course." She turned back to the baby and shut her eyes, concentrating. All was quiet for nearly a minute before the fairy's eyes flew open.

"What?" Maurice said, rushing forward. Simone looked on worriedly, but remained silent. "What did you see?"

The fairy shook her head and leaned closer to the infant. She made a clear attempt at swallowing the gasp but the way her gaze shot around the room told Maurice all. "There is darkness here. Great darkness."

Simone stepped forward. "Tell us more." Her voice was quiet, yet commanding.

"No. No I can't. I can't see it. There is some sort of darkness surrounding your daughter. I don't know from where it comes." She looked from Maurice to Simone and back again. "I have never seen such a thing in an infant's future." She released the baby and stared almost blankly around the room.

She backed away, her hands raised before her.

Maurice rushed forward and gripped her arm. "You must tell us…"

"No...No. This needs a higher power, someone with a clearer vision." She yanked her arm away from Maurice and before he could grab her again, she turned and leapt into the air, transforming in an instant into her smaller self and disappearing from the room.

The Lady Simone immediately rushed to Belle and plucked her out of the basinet, holding her close. "Darkness, Maurice. You're right, this was a mistake."

Maurice moved to his throne and sat heavily in it, one hand over his eyes. Silence reigned in the room. Only the small stifled sobs of Simone as she held her daughter could be heard. "I don't know what to do, Simone," he murmured. She rushed to his side and together the pair held their lovely infant daughter. "I just don't know what to do."

"Maybe she's wrong, Maurice. Maybe she doesn't know…"

It was only moments later when the purple light returned accompanied by a brighter blue light. Magenta rematerialized with a much smaller fairy accompanying her. The smaller one, dressed all in blue stepped forward and immediately captured everyone's attention.

"Magenta tells me she's seen something."

"Blue, there is a darkness around this child. I don't know what it is." Maurice gasped. The Blue Fairy. Magenta brought the highest fairy in the realms to them. This darkness thing was perhaps worse than he thought. Not a mistake, then. He had tried to tell himself it was the mistake of a fairy who could not see all, but no. If she'd brought the Blue Fairy, then it was more serious than he thought.

His precious Belle, just days old, surrounded by a darkness that scared even the ancient fairy who patronized their family.

Blue approached Simone and knelt in front of her.

"Should I?..." Simone indicated the basinet with a nod.

"No, my lady. This is fine." She reached out a hand and placed it lightly on the baby's forehead.

Maurice watched her carefully as her eyes drifted shut, waiting for some sign that Magenta was perhaps wrong, that the fairy had indeed misread what she was seeing. For nearly two minutes he waited with baited breath, watched the unreadable fairy closely or any sign.

And then he saw her stiffen, her lips parting in a silent "o." Her hand remained on Belle's forehead for a moment longer and then her eyes opened and met his.

He felt a power there, but behind that power he felt an immense sadness. And even more frightening to one such as he, Maurice saw a brief flash of fear cross the powerful fairy's face before she released his daughter and stood.

She approached him and reached out a gentle hand to take his in hers. "Call your war council Sir Maurice. We have much to discuss."

"Discuss…about…?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer. If he could take it all back he would never have listened to his wife and would have remained ignorant of whatever fate was in store for his lovely daughter. So tiny, so fragile, and already her life seemed to hang in the balance.

"I need time…"

She was hedging. He knew she was. He could see by the way her eyes shifted away from his, the way she kept turning and looking at Simone and the infant. She may be the leader of the fairies but she was no more able to hide her feelings than any human was.

"No," Maurice said. "No time. We deserve to know. I _want _to know." He stood tall, towering over the tiny fairy. Magenta moved closer to Blue, standing nearly a head taller than the petite fairy.

"Fine then," Blue said, stepping away from Magenta to face Maurice straight on. She glanced at the infant one last time before taking a deep breath. "Your daughter is indeed surrounded by a dark aura. I tried to see further into her future, to see what this darkness was, but it was mostly impenetrable."

"Yes," Simone murmured, holding their daughter tighter. She held out a hand to her husband who stepped closer and took it in his own. His hand engulfed her much tinier one and together they faced the Blue Fairy.

"But I did see one thing. I do not know how it will come to pass, but I saw your daughter bearing a child…" For a moment Maurice smiled. _Grandchildren_. It was long in the future but he can't say the thought had never crossed his mind.

"How can this be a bad thing?" Simone interrupted the fairy with.

Blue held up one small hand and the look on her face was dark, the frown she wore causing deep lines to appear near her mouth. "The child will be fathered by the Dark One."

Feeling faint, Maurice sank to the ground where he stood, his only lifeline his wife's small hand.


	3. Chapter 2

The room erupted into chaos around them, but Maurice could hardly pay them any mind. He looked up at his wife, sitting so still on the step above him, their daughter grasped tightly in her arms.

"We must send her away!" one member of the council shouted.

"Send her away?" another shot back. "If we do that, there is no way to protect her. She will surely fall prey to his dark schemes."

"Why this child?" yet a third asked.

"She cannot live," the oldest and harshest of the council stated, his words falling heavily into the room.

Lady Simone leapt to her feet, Maurice releasing her hand as she did so. The infant, their daughter, the one whose fate hung in the balance, was clutched tightly in her arms. "No!" she called out, but few paid her heed.

Belle apparently had had enough, however, and the infant began to wail, the noise echoing through the large room too much for her sensitive ears. The wail, which seemed to increase in volume the longer it went on, stopped all of the shouting as all seemed to turn, almost as one, to face the child.

"This is a child you're talking about," Simone said, her voice shaking with rage. "_My_ child. You will not kill her." She rounded on the man who had spoken such a horrible thing aloud. "You will not send her away." She rounded on the first man who had spoken. And then she finally turned to the second, a younger man with curling sandy blond hair. He had no doubt not seen the harsh reality of the world the others had. "We _will_ protect her, as you suggest."

Finally, she turned to face the fairies once more, noting the pinched look around Blue's face and the utter devastation written across Magenta's. "_You_ will protect her."

"I?..." The Blue Fairy seemed to be taken somewhat aback by the insistent tone of her voice.

"I will not have my daughter traded off to the Dark One. _Impregnated_ by him? Can you even imagine what my girl will go through? You must find some way to stop this from happening." Maurice reached out and squeezed her shoulder. His wife was always so strong, so brave. It was one of the traits he truly admired about her.

"It is written," the Blue Fairy started to say. She looked someone confused, a bit shocked. Perhaps she wasn't used to humans who stood up for themselves. Or perhaps she simply wasn't used to being faced with such a thing, with so much darkness surrounding one so little.

"Then _unwrite_ it," Simone said, taking a step toward the smaller fairy. "Find a way."

The Blue Fairy sighed and looked around the room at those assembled there. Maurice followed her gaze, watching as it alighted on first himself and his very determined wife, then the council members in turn, each one with varying looks of horror and confusion. Finally her gaze fell once more on the infant clutched so tightly in his wife's arms.

"Gather your council," the Blue Fairy said. "I must talk with the others." She nodded briskly and motioned for Magenta to join her. "We will return in three hours time. Be ready for us." And then the pair was gone as quickly as they had arrived.

The council erupted again in arguments about what to do. Maurice and Simone stepped back as the council members voices increased in anger and sharpness.

"What are going to do, my husband?" Simone asked as she stepped closer to him.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to him. "I don't know, my wife. I just don't know."

_The Dark One_. His people had heard rumors about him for generations. Immortal and steeped in the darkest of magic, he lived high in the mountains where he could practice his nefarious sorcery where none would disturb him. They had heard about his dealings for magical items, his offering things to desperate people, dangling it in front of them like a carrot stick before a donkey.

None in their duchy had ever met him, though there were strange accounts from others who had dealt with him and lived to tell it. Some had described him as nothing more than a tiny gnome, others said he was a frightening giant who had taken what he wanted and left them with little. Some called him beast, others monster, others said he was a dragon in human form. None called him a man.

Yet even if he _were_ nothing more than a man, their daughter would need to be protected. He sent Simone and their daughter off, had her escorted out by one of her maids, had her taken to safety. His wife trusted him. She knew he'd make a decision that was right for their child.

When the Blue Fairy returned exactly three hours later, she was accompanied not only by Magenta but two other fairies, one dressed in shades of green, the other in shades of gold. The war council was already seated at the table and Maurice held up one hand, indicating to his men to bring more chairs to the table.

There had never been even one fairy in this council room during his lifetime, or at least not since his birth some thirty years ago. Having four there, one of which was the highest and most ancient of fairies leant a certain gravity to the situation. When the fairies sat at the table, straightening their skirts around them, the council almost immediately hushed.

Maurice took his spot at the head of the table. "Do you have any plans?"

The Blue Fairy took a deep breath and met his eyes. "I have discussed many ideas with the other fairies and all agree that protecting your daughter from the Dark One is of utmost importance. He had a son once…"

"So this Dark One is a man?" he cut her off with.

"Of sorts," Blue admitted. "He was a man…once. Now? He is part man, part monster. I do not know what this creature would do to your daughter, nor to another child of his. He lost his son through his own evil ways."

Maurice shuddered. "I have heard rumors that he deals for infants." For a moment he imagined his infant daughter in the hands of the monster and the thought left him nearly faint.

"He does…on occasion. I do not know what he does with them." She held up one hand. "The child however…_your _child. I did not see her as an infant with him, but rather a grown woman. He will not arrive any time soon to steal her away from you."

"But he _will_ steal her away." It was a statement, not a question.

"I have no doubt of it. No one would go willingly." Her eyes slid away from his briefly.

"How can we protect her? _Can_ we protect her?" The thought of his daughter ever being taken away, much less by the Dark One, well, he just couldn't fathom it. Maurice had always been a strong man, a good family man, keeping his soldiers as safe, making sure as many as possible made it home to their families. The thought that he might not be able to protect his daughter from this horror was daunting.

"We can…I think." She looked at the other fairies for a moment.

Magenta spoke up then. "We can send her away." She held up one hand before Maurice had a chance to protest. "I know it's not the option you would choose, but it may be her best option. She would be raised in another duchy by leaders who have remained childless despite our best interventions."

"No…" Maurice began to say.

"We will watch over her for the rest of her life," the golden one spoke up.

"We will keep her safe," Magenta added.

He shook his head. "Simone would never agree. _I_ would never agree. There has to be another way."

"There is," Blue said. "But it's admittedly not much better."

"Does it involve me getting to raise my daughter?"

"Well, yes…"

"Then it's better." At least the fairies had something. He would not send his daughter off to some unnamed part of the realm to be raised by people he didn't know to believe she is their daughter with only the promise of the fairies "protecting" her to keep him going. No, he would raise his own daughter in his own home, even if he had to sacrifice _himself_ to the Dark One to save her.

"We can put her in the room at the top of your tower and create powerful wards to shield her from the Dark One. He won't be able to find her, even if he's looking for her."

"And…" It sounded ideal. Belle, raised in his own home, but his family.

"She can never ever leave." He stared at her. "If she leaves," the fairy continued with, "he will find her."

His Belle would spend the rest of her life in a tiny room, almost a cell. But she would be alive. She would be safe. The decision was easier to make than he thought it would be. "Let's do it."

* * *

He had explained everything to Simone, more than once even. She agreed with him, that it was the best plan of action. But she wasn't happy with it. He had agreed to get her tutors in every subject, to move in musical instruments and books and whatever could keep their daughter occupied. In some ways, he hoped she was a simple girl with simple needs. If she took after her mother and had her voracious appetite for learning, she would suffer, there alone within the round walls of her tower.

Before the fairies worked their magic, he had several people in to furnish the room. The basinet was moved in, bookshelves added, the fireplace stocked. Simone had brought in all her old childhood books, the covers in tatters but otherwise still intact. She had a rocking chair added at the side of the basinet and had some of the men hang the mobile she had made for the baby.

When the room was furnished as they wished it, the fairies banished them all from the tower. Fairy magic was not to be witnessed by anyone. It seemed the protections for warding against the Dark One were especially intricate and powerful. All four of the fairies were left in the tower alone, as they all needed to contribute their abilities to the wards.

Maurice and Simone spent the time with their daughter, walking around their castle, showing her all the areas she would never get to see for her whole life. Simone whispered stories about the castle to her daughter, told her about the people who lived there, about their ancestors. Maurice walked at her side, slowly, trying to hold back tears. He knew they would at least be able to go in to see her. But he had a hard time imagining the life for one who was kept in only one room.

The fairies were ultimately done a bit sooner than he would have liked. Several hours had passed by, some of which were spent reassuring the less certain council members that he did think this was truly the right course of action. But soon enough Magenta came and found them where they were sitting in Simone's bedroom, the place of their daughter's birth.

"This is her last free day," Simone whispered. "Oh Maurice, are you sure we're doing the right thing?"

"You are," Magenta said from the doorway. The smile on her face was tight, her lips drawn tight against her teeth. "There is nothing else _to _do. She will grow up safe and loved."

"But happy?" Simone asked and her own voice was quiet and shuttered.

"That I do not know." Magenta shook her head sadly. "I suppose that is up to you. Keep her mind occupied. Give her the world outside in her lessons and books. And always…_always_…make sure she knows she is loved and that all you do is for her protection. It is all you can do for her."

They moved Belle into the room that night, when the moon was full. The Blue Fairy cast the final spell as they all stepped outside the door. Waving her wand in strange patterns in front of the door, she released magic the likes of which Maurice and Simone had never seen. The blue aura surrounded the door briefly before shooting out and tracing the rectangle from the top left corner and around. It glowed brighter once the doorway was outline and then the magic disappeared into the door in a shower of sparks.

"It is done," the Blue Fairy said and all who were there remained still, watching the door, knowing that what they were really looking at was a prison of sorts.

* * *

Simone had not wanted to be alone that night, instead choosing to spend the night in Maurice's bed, clasped tightly in his arms. She sobbed through the early part of the evening and Maurice was at a complete loss for how to help her. Instead he stayed quiet, hoping his silent support would be enough for her.

"She's alive," he murmured into her hair. "She's with us." It was the most comfort he could give.

She had settled sometime late into the evening, her sobs leading her to an exhausted sleep, and Maurice had disentangled himself from her to rest fitfully at her side. His thoughts were consumed with what the life of his little girl would be like.

He was never quite sure when he had fallen asleep, but he must have for he was woken out of a fairly exhausted slumber to the sounds of his wife thrashing about in the bed next to him. He turned on his side, reached out a hand to touch her cheek, to try to wake her up out of the nightmare. She was hot to the touch and almost as soon as his fingers brushed her face her eyes shot open. In the small light from the dying fire he could see that her eyes were strangely blank, almost unseeing.

"Simone?" he questioned and received only a strange gurgle in response. "Simone!" he called louder and watched as her body was wracked by a seizure, shaking slightly and then stiffening in his embrace.

He pulled himself away from her and rushed out of the room, calling for any who would listen. His wife's maid was the first to appear and he instructed her to take care of his ailing wife. His valet appeared next and he sent him to the village to retrieve the healer.

"What is wrong with her sir?" he said before he ran off.

"I don't know. But whatever it is, it can't be good." With those ominous words ringing in his ears, the young valet made for the village to do as his master bade.

Maurice spent the next several hours at Simone's bedside, seated in a chair whose comfort he scant enjoyed. The healer had come, given her some concoction that smelled horrible and probably tasted worse, and left him with several poultices to lay on her forehead to bring the fever down.

And still she worsened.

Around dawn, the coughing began. She was almost unconscious by then and he was thankful for that as the coughs that wracked her small body looked incredibly painful. Maurice could do little more than hold her hand and apply the poultices to her brow. Nothing calmed her and the healer was brought back in.

"This is worse than I thought," the old woman muttered, shaking her head as her dark eyes fell first on Simone and then on Maurice. She disappeared and came back nearly a half hour later with yet another potion. "Give this to her, Sir Maurice. It will help ease the cough."

"Will it make her better?"

The old woman shook her head, her messy mop of graying hair moving slightly with the motion. "No sir, I don't think so. It will only make this easier on her."

"This?" He shot up and rounded on the old woman. "Make what easier?"

She just gave him a look and left the room. And Maurice knew what she meant. Oh he tried not to, tried to deny it, but there was little hope here. Simone was dying. Just like that, one moment hale and the next fading away with nary a reason why.

He stayed at her bedside, watching as she continued to weaken. The healer's coughing potion did help, though she still had the occasional coughing fit that wracked her body with obvious pain. Around midday he noticed the cough was bringing up blood. He carefully wiped away the flecks on her pale lips.

"Oh Simone," he murmured. "You can't leave me, my wife. We have only just begun." He choked back a sob. "And who else is going to comfort our daughter when she cries all alone in her tower? Who is going to explain to her about what her life will entail? She needs you, my love." His voice broke slightly. "_I _need you."

He laid his head down on the bed at her side and gave into it, letting the sobs come. When he finally fell silent, he felt a light sensation at his hair, just a ghost of a touch. He looked up to see Simone watching him. Her eyes were glazed over but clearer than before.

"Simone." He clutched her hand in his. "You have come back to me."

"No my husband." Her voice was weak and speaking caused her to cough once more. "No I am leaving you."

"No." He gripped her hand tightly between both of his much larger ones. "No you cannot leave me. You cannot leave _us. _Belle needs you."

She shook her head. "She needs _you_ my love. And she will have you." A coughing fit wracked her small body once more. "Please, Maurice, let her know her mother loved her very much." She closed her eyes and her grip on Maurice's hand weakened.

"I love you Simone. Your daughter will always love you. This I swear." He leaned forward and kissed her gently, feeling her breath combine with his for one last time. And then she was gone, her hand limp within his own.


	4. Chapter 3

She stood at the window to her room, just a small girl of ten years of age. She could _almost_ see out the window, almost see the ground far beneath her room high up in the tower. But she was still not quite tall enough and so could mostly just see the clouds in the sky. It was to those she turned her eyes again.

"Belle, child, do you want your lesson or not?" Her governess, a lovely older woman by the name of Claudine, was exasperated by her as she so often was. She had been taken on as the child's governess and tutor for basic reading, writing and arithmetic when Belle was only four. She had a way about her, the woman did, and Maurice greatly respected her. She was learned but generally patient with his too-bright daughter. She once told him she enjoyed teaching her because she simply soaked up knowledge like a sponge and was always ready to learn something new.

But as of late, Belle had not been quite the same. She had always been a quiet child, inquisitive, excited about her lessons and learning. She was a bright girl and by the age of only six was reading to her father in the evenings instead of his reading to her. Sometimes that brightness really worried Claudine. She had heard the story of how Belle came to be in the tower, how she had to lock the door from the outside when she left, why Belle could never ever leave. And she had been sworn to secrecy. Belle must not be told why she was there, not until the time was right at least.

"What's out there?" Belle asked, still staring out at the clouds. "My friends, they talk of grass and I've never seen it. They talk of the wind and I've never felt it on my face." She turned around and her tiny face was pinched, her eyes slightly red.

"You have all you need here," Claudine responded with, though the words were more wooden than she would have liked.

Belle shook her head, the long braid her hair was tied into flying out with the motion. "And I love my books. I love _you_. I love my Papa. But there's whole world out there, isn't there?"

Claudine smiled sadly. "You are wise beyond your years, my dear little one. But there is much you do not know about this world. There is a darkness out there that would swallow a tiny thing like you whole in one bite. Someday you will understand, my darling child. I promise you that." It was all she _could_ promise her. Someday soon her father would have to explain all to the girl. She knew the time drew near.

Belle sighed and sat down heavily on her small bed. "Tell me again about my Mama." The girl had lost her when she was just days old and all she had left of her was a necklace that her father had given her on her eighth birthday and the memories of Simone that she and her father had shared with her. The magic had taken her on the fateful day that Belle was locked in her tower, attacking her from the inside out, tearing her apart and causing her to fade away in a series of fits and coughs that had destroyed her rapidly.

Maurice had confronted the fairies. Of course he had. And it was up to their patron fairy to tell him the shocking truth. Magic was costly, Magenta had told him. Sometimes it came with a price and magic the likes of which they had used to hide his daughter from the Dark One was very powerful indeed. It had exacted a price, one which Maurice and Simone could not have seen coming.

Maurice had never forgiven the fairies for the death of his wife. They had not warned him that such a thing might happen. And while they did not _know_ the price that would be paid, could not have anticipated that the magic would take away his wife while sparing their daughter, he still blamed them. Magenta had not been back, the mirror to call her banished to a drawer full of useless junk. And Maurice had turned his mind completely to his daughter.

"Papa!" Belle exclaimed when he entered the room and he found himself with an armful of happy daughter, spinning her around in great circles of excitement. "I knew you'd come to me this afternoon!"

"You did, did you? And how did you know that?" He set her down on her feet and gave her a conspiratorial look.

"I just did," she announced. "I know these things."

"Do you now?" His smile was indulgent.

She leaned closer to him and whispered in his ear. "I'm psychotic." She nodded sagely with the words.

"You mean _psychic_, Belle," Claudine spoke up and Belle shot her an annoyed look.

"I always wondered about you my girl. You always seem to know when I'm coming." Maurice glanced quickly at Claudine and winked at her. The older woman blushed.

Belle suddenly giggled. "Oh Papa, I'm not psychic. You always come at the same time!" He picked her up, still such a tiny child, and dangled her over her bed from her feet. "No! Papa!" She shouted the words amidst her giggles before he released her to fall onto the bed with a squeal.

"So I do, my girl, so I do. It seems I've become quite predictable in my old age."

"You're not old Papa." She reached out a hand and touched his. "Not yet at least!" And the giggles were back.

His Belle was such a sunny child. Even locked in the tower as she was, she was joyful. She was given to occasional bouts of melancholy, but he would take those over what he had expected. He had _expected_ a sullen child who felt trapped. And while he had a sense that perhaps she was starting to chafe due to the constraints placed on her, she still had an optimistic outlook to life.

Maurice dismissed Claudine and sat on the bed with his daughter. "Do you want to read to me, sweetheart?"

"No, not tonight Papa."

"What would you like then, my Belle? Anything for my best girl!" He would have given her the world if he could have, would have taken her out of the tower and shown her everything she had ever wanted to see.

"I want to know why I'm here Papa." The words cut deep into him.

"Here, my dear? I know I've explained that before." He cleared his throat. "Your Mama, who loved you very much…"

"Oh not _that_, Papa. I know all about you and Mama and the love thing." She rolled her eyes, a look he didn't even know that his young daughter could make.

"Were did you learn that one from?"

"_Papa_." She put her little hands on her hips. "I want to know why I'm here, in this room. I want to know why you can leave but I can't."

And for the first time he saw the unshed tears in her eyes. He was sure they had been there before, no doubt he had missed them all these years, probably ever since she started to show an awareness that her life was different.

He had known this time would come.

"Oh my Belle. There are reasons." He stood. "I'm going to bring someone to you Belle, someone who can explain all far better than I can. Just know…there are reasons…"

He left then, before she could protest. He knew what he had to do. It had been ten years since they'd been there, since he sent them away in anger after the death of his Simone. He didn't want them there even now, but if his daughter was going to find out the truth, then she deserved to hear it from someone other than just her father, someone who had created her prison.

* * *

Magenta answered his call right away, though her smile seemed somewhat strained when she realized who was calling her. "Maurice, it's been a long time."

"Ten years," he muttered.

"So long already."

"It's time, Magenta." His voice sounded tired. Ten years of keeping the truth from his daughter was enough.

"She has asked the question." Magenta's voice was flat. It was a statement, not a question.

"You knew she would."

"Yes, but not so soon."

"My daughter is bright and curious. I'm actually surprised it took so long for her to demand answers." Whenever they discussed historical subjects, Belle wanted to know why people did the things they do. _But why did the ogres attack those people? Do you think they were really bad, Papa or just trying to fight for their existence? _She questioned _everything_. How she had managed to not bring up her being kept in what amounted to a very comfortable prison was beyond his ken

Magenta looked concerned in the rippling glass of the mirror. "So it is as you feared then."

"Yes."

"We will come." And the glass shimmered once more and her face disappeared.

It took only a few more hours for Magenta to show up with the Blue Fairy accompanying her. "Maurice," Magenta said upon entering his study. Her face lit up just slightly before her gaze slid back to the Blue Fairy.

"Why have you brought us here?" the Blue Fairy said, the tone of her voice both imperious and somewhat bored.

"Belle wants to know." Such simple words. So much meaning. "You did this. You killed her mother…"

"I did no such thing!" It was the first time he had seen the cold fairy sound angry.

"No, your magic did. Same difference. Simone isn't here and I don't know what to tell my little girl."

"Tell her the truth," Blue responded with. "I can do no more than that…"

Maurice sighed. "I know, but coming from you…"

Magenta stepped between them. "We'll tell her. She deserves to hear that it wasn't your idea and that it was the best we could do for her."

Belle was sitting on the bed when Maurice led the two fairies into the tower room. She immediately jumped up and stared at them, open-mouthed. "You're _fairies_," she whispered.

"Yes, child," Blue said. Magenta looked suitably impressed.

"Let me tell you a story," Magenta said, leading Belle back to the bed and sitting down next to her. "I understand you like stories."

"I do," Belle said. "Did my Papa tell you that?" Her blue eyes were bright.

"He didn't have to. I'm a _fairy_," she whispered conspiratorially.

"So you know everything, then?" Belle asked, her eyes wide.

"I know a lot," Magenta at least somewhat confirmed it. Belle would talk about this encounter for ages, he knew.

"So do you want this story or not?" Belle nodded her head vigorously. "Ten years ago a beautiful baby girl was born to her doting parents. They called on their patron fairy..."

"That was you?"

Magenta smiled. "It was. They called on me to read her future. For you see, I'm one of the seer fairies. I can see into someone's future, especially if they're very tiny and have little history written yet."

"Like me? I was that baby?" Maurice smiled with pride. His Belle, always sharp.

"You were. And your father before you. And his before him. I have been reading your family's history for a very long time. Now in your father's, I saw that he would rule young, but rule fairly. And that has come to pass. In yours, however, I saw something…something terrible. A man who is barely a man would come steal you away someday."

Belle's eyes darkened and she glanced over at her father. "I don't want anyone to take me away."

The Blue Fairy stepped in then, both calm and stern. "And no one will my child. The Dark One would have you some day, but we have prevented this." She smiled, an attempt at soothing the child. "This tower protects you. Powerful magics ward him off and hide you from him. So long as you stay here, he will never _ever_ find you."

"I can't leave forever?" Belle's voice was small and broke on the last syllable.

"I'm sorry my child," Maurice said finally, moving further into the room. "To leave would be to risk your life." He kneeled down in front of her and reached out for her hands. "I know it's not much of a life here, my dear, but we will keep you safe and you will always be loved."

* * *

His head shot up, the potion he was working on forgotten about in an instant. It had been many years since he had sensed that particular fairy nearby. He wasn't sure how long, really. When one was immortal and focused nearly all of their energy on their work, life just passed you by. He still remembered the moment he called on one of his old acquaintances for help in a deal and discovered the man had aged some twenty years. It had taken him entirely by surprise.

So when he sensed _her_ nearby, he wasn't sure how long it had been since she had entered his realm, nor how long it had been since she had been so close to his castle. But he knew it had been a long time.

_Fairies_. He had never trusted them, not even before he became the Dark One. But ever since that fateful day, ever since they had interfered with his life, with his _son_, had sent him to another world, he had learned the truth of their ways. _Untrustworthy little cretins, the whole lot of them._

And worst of them all was the Blue Fairy. Known as Reul Ghorm in the fairy tongue, a language he had spent many years studying and learning, she was the highest of the fairies. Those who were supposedly pure of heart could call on her and she would fly in on her little tiny wings in her little tiny jellyfish-shaped dress, and grant them all that their heart desired…within reason of course. Even the fairies had to follow the rules of magic.

He had to learn those rules himself of course and often learned them the hard way. Magic had been forced onto him when he ended the previous Dark One's life and though he suddenly had great powers, he found he had to figure out how to harness them. After ending the Ogre War, after bringing all the children home, he had gone back out to the battlefield and tried to bring back the children who had already perished. He had slipped in their blood, crawled alongside them in the mud and grass, and not been able to do more than heal the one child he found still living out there on that field. He had been called hero and then scorned for not saving them all. He had gone out to that field a coward, returned as the bravest man they knew, and then told he simply hadn't done enough. A thousand lives were not enough. Nothing he could have done was enough.

It was a hard lesson, the first he learned in his new magical world. He never forgot it. He needed to study to understand what he had become. It wasn't long after that when he acquired his first books on magic and learned the major lessons of his new craft.

So when he felt her presence, when he knew _Reul Ghorm_ was nearby, invading his territory, he couldn't stand for it. Almost as soon as he thought it, he was standing outside a different castle, a different keep. His eyes, sharper than any humans, scanned the area quickly.

A gasp met his ears and he turned, spying not one but two tiny fairies, wings flapping in the slight breeze high above him. "Reul Ghorm!" he called. The fairies swooped down near him, increasing in size as they landed.

The one dressed all in purple gave a slight squeak when she realized who was there. The Blue Fairy, however, gave him a disdainful look. "What are you doing here Dark One?"

He watched her for a moment and threw his senses out into the winds. There was…something…there. He wasn't sure what, but he felt _something_. He turned around and looked at the keep behind him. It was in an area he had only been in once before, long ago. He didn't even know the name of the current ruler, nor did it particularly matter to him. But there was something there. He glanced up.

"Go back to where you came from, Dark One." He looked at her only briefly before continuing his perusal of the keep. Most of it was insignificant, only touched slightly by the magic of the fairies. But it was the tower, high above him, that drew most of his interest. There were great wards, great protections in place there. They hid something from anyone who wielded dark magic.

He turned back to the fairies, a dark smile gracing his face. "What's in the tower?" The words were quiet, menacing. He noticed the lesser fairy flinch slightly, but Blue met his gaze steadily.

"Nothing that concerns you, Dark One."

He snarled at her, bared his rotten teeth. "I know a lie when I hear one." Rounding on her he reached out his hand to attempt to grasp her about the neck. The fairy stepped back quickly and his hand closed on the air. "You will tell me what is in that tower."

"Nothing…"

"If it were nothing, you would not be protecting it." The Blue Fairy waved away the taller of the two. The other looked at her for a moment before leaping into the air and taking to flight.

"You will never find out what's there, Dark One. You are better off leaving well enough alone."

He narrowed his eyes. "This concerns my son, does it? Something _else_ to keep me from him? It won't work, dearie. I already know what needs to be done and mark my words, it _will_ be done."

"Your curse?"she scoffed. "Never. The fairies will prevent that…"

"You have no idea what I'm capable of," he cut her off with. When it came to his son, when it came to finding him and reuniting them, he was capable of doing _anything_. He had already walked so many paths, gone down so many dark roads. He had searched the world over for the young woman who would send him down the road to find his son. He believed he had found her in the daughter of a woman he once made a deal with, a deal he had rendered null and void through his own foolishness. He was watching her grow up, could see the strength in her, the magic she had inherited from her mother. When the time was right, he would strike, bringing her into his life and grooming her to cast the curse the Blue Fairy herself had indicated would take him to his son. _More than she seems_…he remembered those words all too well and perhaps the young Regina was that. Only time would tell.

"You do not know that either, Rumplestiltskin. You may find out someday that what you are capable of will bring about your downfall."

He glanced once more up at the tower before disappearing. _Let her have the last word this time_. Someday he would have the _final_ word. _Sanctimonious little jelly fish_…


	5. Chapter 4

"I don't know what all you want these for." The older woman tossed the books down on the bed with a huff. It was getting harder and harder to lug the dusty old things up from the library below.

The young woman turned from the window. "Learning, Claudine. Just learning." Belle had grown into a beautiful young woman, dark-haired with piercing blue eyes just as the fairy had predicted over two decades ago. She was gentle of soul, with a keen intelligence that often set her at cross-purposes to friends and family alike. She had no experience with the outside world, but holed up in her little one-room cage as she was, that didn't matter so much. She had read so much, learned so much about the outside world that she sometimes felt like she was aware of more than others.

"Magic, Miss Belle? Magic is what got you here in the first place." Claudine put her hands on her hips. "No good can come of studying it."

Belle laughed lightly. "Oh Claudine, never fear. I have no magical abilities. It's just a curiosity."

"Hmph," Claudine replied with. "Well, I'll leave you to your studies then."

Belle smiled as she watched her go, just another one who could leave while she couldn't. Long ago they had explained why, but that still didn't sit well with her. They were protecting her from some mysterious magical creature who might or might not come for her someday.

She wanted her freedom.

She wanted to see the world, taste a bit of everything life had to offer.

She _needed_ it. And if magic were what they were using to keep her here, then magic she would research to combat it. Perhaps she could even find out something about this creature who was supposed to come for her, this _Dark One_. What kind of creature didn't even have a name? She had asked her father once what the name of the creature was and he had looked so horrified and shut her down so quickly, that she never asked again.

But she wondered.

Claudine would answer her questions sometimes, but she knew almost nothing. Not the name of the creature, nor what he looked like, nor why he would even want _her_. She had asked multiple times, of her father, of Claudine, of friends, but none had answers.

So she turned to her books as she so often did. They were frequently her only friends, and they were always her only adventures. Now they were hopefully the key to her freedom. She needed her freedom, like others needed air. But she also needed to know what was in store if she did set foot outside of the tower. She had been told multiple times that leaving the tower meant he could find her, meant he _would_ find her. And then he would take her away for some nefarious purpose.

No one would say more than that, though Belle was sure there was more to the story than she was being told. Perhaps something in the books would tell her _something_ that would lead her down the right path.

She spent weeks studying those books, trying to figure out what they meant. She had to keep them hidden from her father and that was difficult as he sometimes liked to surprise her with visits. Once she had asked him about reading the magical tomes in the library that Claudine had mentioned being there and his reaction had been so unexpectedly harsh that she never asked again. But she had bothered Claudine for months until she finally brought her a few to peruse.

Those few had lead to a few more until she had a fairly large stockpile of them stuffed under her bed. Her father was not much of a reader and had left the library to Claudine to sort through for Belle. Once in awhile he went in after some tome or another, but it wasn't likely he would notice the books that were missing. But he _would_ notice the large number of books on magic she had stashed away in her room if she left them out.

So she kept them hidden away and pulled them out, sometimes in the dark of night, studying them by candlelight. Often she couldn't make much out of them, but some were written in plain language and understandable even by those who knew nothing of magic. Some even contained minor spells and though Belle had no innate magical ability, she had once been able to light one of her candles with a small spell she had found buried in one of the books.

Few said anything about the Dark One. What she had pieced together, jotting notes down on a few crumpled pieces of paper, amounted to almost nothing. Depending on what she read he was either a magical creature who made deals with the desperate or he was some sort of evil succubus who stole away infants straight from their mother's breast and did nefarious things to them. One book suggested he _ate_ them, though she wondered how anyone knew that since that same book mentioned his taking them to his castle and the babes never being seen again. She supposed it was possible. But then what exactly would a baby-eating succubus want with a grown woman anyway?

The former seemed hardly frightening, though they often described the creature as hideously ugly, a strange being that was part human and part demon. The latter was terrifying indeed and the thought of being stolen away by such a creature made her almost thankful for the magical protections that kept her safe.

And yet…still…she wanted out of her prison, safe though it might be.

_I wish Papa would understand_. She wished he would free her, let her face the consequences. Her mother had died soon after her birth, so there were no more children to rule when he passed on, no more children to love and dote on. She was the only one and she was locked in her prison. She would never marry, never have children. She would never rule, even if the rights of succession could pass the duchy onto a woman. She would never be anything, just a girl in a tower. When would she be too old to worry about anymore? When would the Dark One no longer care about her existence? Would he come for her if she were forty, eighty, a hundred years old? Or would she someday be safe?

She wondered about these things constantly. And the more time went on, the more she focused on them. Her life had become a series of monotonous days. Friends came and chatted. Her father came and played games with her, told her about the goings-on in the village. She lived vicariously, watching children play on the lawn far below her, feeling the sunshine in the window but never smelling the great outdoors nor feeling the breeze she could see moving the treetops.

Someday she _would_ be free, even if it meant risking the Dark One coming for her.

And so her studies continued. Week after week, month after month. It was some seven months later when she stumbled on a spell that would temporarily release fairy magic. Such a simple spell, words on a page, a candle made out of beeswax, an opal. She had the opal, part of a necklace her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. She had the words. All she needed was the candle and she was sure she could rely on Claudine or one of her friends to retrieve it for her. Most of the candles they had were made from tallow, as they were much more easily obtained than the ones made of beeswax. But she knew there must be someone in the village who sold the right type of candle.

In the end, she got a friend to get one for her. Her friends would not question her. Her friends would not go back to her father. Though they knew at least _some_ of why she was in the tower, they did not feel it was their obligation to keep her there. Her closest friend was a woman a handful of years younger than her. Still not married and somewhat homely, Sophie was her faithful companion. She spent many an hours talking with Belle when she was bored, telling her about the handsome boys of town and the one in particular that she had been pining after since she was a mere fourteen years old. Sophie was allowed in at almost all hours and her father, when he spoke of her, was indulgent. He surely must know that someday all her companions would be married with lives of their own. Where would that leave Belle?

Sophie brought the candle, along with the cloak Belle had asked for, late one afternoon and Belle's eyes lit up when she saw it. "You're sure it's beeswax?" It didn't look much different than the tallow candles she had, but when she held it in her hand, felt the softness to it, she knew it wasn't made of the same stuff they were.

"That's what the merchant told me. You owe me for this one Belle. They kept asking me why I wanted one made of beeswax specifically. I had to lie." Sophie was well known for being almost honest to a fault. Belle was too. This was, as far as she could remember, the first planned protest against all that her life was.

"I know Sophie. I know. And thank you." Her friend left soon after that and the beeswax candle was buried under the bed along with the book she needed for enacting the spell.

* * *

When it came down to it, enacting the spell was far simpler than Belle could have imagined. She set out what she needed late at night, long after her father, Claudine, and most everyone else would have retired for the night. She wanted to have as much time outdoors as she could get before they came after her and, ultimately found her. She knew they would, probably sooner than she'd like, because she had no experience with anything outside her tower.

But oh, to be out there in the fresh air for just a little while. It was worth taking the risks.

She hung the opal over the book as she lit the candle, letting a tiny bit of the wax drip onto the page and then blowing across it. Instead of solidifying the wax, it lifted the words off the page and sent them spiraling about the room. She stepped near the door and watched as they turned and spread out, briefly touching the fairy magic.

Blue sparks flew out from the door and then they were gone, flashing out for a moment. Belle didn't have to wait to see what else might happen. She opened the door just far enough and slipped through.

A moment later she saw the flash of blue again. The door was sealed once more. And this time, she was on the outside.

All was still in the hallway. Dark, quiet, not a person around. It was exactly as she hoped. Belle was really uncertain of how to get out of the keep, but first she knew she had to get down some fairly treacherous stairs in the dark. She'd heard her father walking heavily down them many times before, sometimes cursing about their steepness. Belle left without a candle, afraid that any light would give her away. That meant making her way to the stairs in near-complete darkness.

Moonlight was drifting in through the window slits and she was thankful for that bit of light. She could see her way to the steps and see the steepness and the curve to the tower. There was no railing and so she placed a hand on the cool stones and kept herself steady that way. The last thing she needed was for her one and only adventure to end with her injuring herself on the tower stairs.

She managed to make it down safely and crept carefully through the rooms she found herself in. Only once did she run into anything, but the resulting noise, and the small squeak of surprise that came from her, did not cause anyone to come running. It seemed the household was well and truly asleep.

And then finally, at long last, she came across a door that led to the grounds outside. She pushed it open, holding her breath with worry. Would someone sound the alarm? Would there be a guard outside it?

But no, there was no one, no alarm. She took a deep breath, feeling fresh air and a cool breeze across her face for the first time that she could remember. She wasn't even sure she'd ever been outside the castle before, not even when she was a babe. Her father had talked of walking her around the castle, but never about taking her outside. This may the first breeze she _ever _felt.

And it was _amazing_. She stepped out into the cool night air and shivered slightly at the breeze, drawing the cloak tighter about her. It was a cool night and she wasn't used to such cold, but the feeling of it on her skin, the goose bumps, it simply made her feel alive. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was part of the world around her, instead of watching it go by. She breathed the same air that the sleeping village was breathing. She saw the same stars they saw, not through her plate glass windows, but with her own two eyes, looking up into the darkness.

She ran forward, the grass beneath her feet, and tore at her shoes. She needed to _feel_ the grass as she felt the air, the wind lifting her hair. She dug her bare toes in and traipsed across the ground, scooping up her shoes as she went. It was glorious, simply marvelous, to feel so connected to the earth. Not stone or woven rugs or the metal of her clawfoot tub, but grass and dirt and earth. She had never felt something quite so soft beneath her bare feet before.

She tugged at the ribbon of her braid, let her hair fly loose, and took off racing across the courtyard and out of the keep entirely. Real freedom. No father to tell her she has to be kept safe. No governess to nod in agreement with him. No fairy magic to hold her back. Just the wind in her hair, the grass beneath her feet, and the stars far above her.

Rushing headlong into the forest surrounding their keep, she touched trees and marveled at the feel of the leaves, the sharpness of the branches. She tripped over branches and gasped at the pain hitting her tender feet. But still, she had no interest in putting her shoes back on. The pain was as much a part of feeling alive as the beauty of the world around her was.

It was at the top of the hill, just as she was about to leave the safety of the trees that she saw him standing there, a lone figure, a bit of black against the darkness of the night. Beyond him she could see the valley, with the lights from the fires showing up prominently against the dark sky. She paused there, just at the edge of the tree line and watched him. He didn't move, his slim figure quiet and still.

"You can come out here, you know," the person on the top of the hill said. He, for she now knew from the voice that the figure was male, stayed turned away from her. She could barely make out much about him, only that he was slight of stature with wild hair. She could see little else.

"I think I prefer to stay here." She hoped that didn't sound quite as prim as it did to her ears.

The man at the top of the hill gave a slight laugh, a little more high-pitched than she expected. "Why are you out here so late, child?"

"I'm not a child," she immediately shot back.

"Aren't you now?" He turned then and she could feel his eyes on her. She wondered how much he could see in the dark.

"I'm two and twenty."

She could see him nod slightly and then he took a few steps toward her. She retreated further behind the nearest tree. He crooked a finger at her and try though she did, she was unable to resist. She slipped the hood of the borrowed cloak over her head and took a few hesitant steps toward him. "So I ask again, what are you doing out here so late?"

"I…" She didn't really know what to say. He motioned her closer. "I have never been outside the keep," she finally managed to say.

"Never?" His voice lost some of the nasal quality it had up until then. He sounded surprised.

"My Papa never let me." It was the truth at least, even if there was so much more to it than that.

"So tonight you crept out." He rolled his "r" in a strange sort of way, his accent entirely unfamiliar. He was not from here and the sound of his voice marked him as such. His accent was melodic and the words rolled off his tongue in a way she found oddly pleasing. "For an assignation?"

Belle snorted, rather indelicately. "Do you call this an assignation?"

He stepped closer, seemed about to speak, before he drew back into himself. "Hardly." He motioned with one hand, drew her out of her haven by the trees. "Come dearie, look. If you've never been outside the keep, then you've never been able to enjoy this view."

She stepped closer to him, but still far enough away that they did not touch, and looked out over the valley. Moonlight lit up much of it, though she and her strange companion were still hidden in darkness. She tried to surreptitiously study him, but all she managed to see before he turned his face away was a slightly hooked nose and large eyes.

They stood that way for some time, the silence strangely companionable. Finally she spoke. "Why are you up here?"

He didn't respond at first and she was almost sure he didn't hear her when he finally answered. "I'm searching for something."

"What?" She was honestly curious.

He shook his head, hair coming down to block what little of his eyes she could see in the dark. "I don't quite know. I only know I must find it."

He was enigmatic, this stranger. Belle stayed watching for a moment longer until she heard a sound far below them.

"They're sounding the alarm…for you?" He spoke without turning to look at her.

She nodded dumbly. "Yes I suppose they are." She slipped away then, retracing her steps back down the hill, leaving the strange man whose name she did not know standing high on the hill alone, watching everyone below him scurry about like ants.

Returning to her tower was an option, but she didn't want to go straight there. Instead, she found herself at the base of the hill, looking upward. The man was still there, silhouetted by the moonlight. She blinked and in an instant he was gone, smoke dissipating where she was sure he had once stood.

Perhaps he had never really been there, just a figment of her overwrought imagination.


	6. Chapter 5

Three years. Three _long_ years and they had finally had enough. Ever since he had sensed some sort of disturbance, a strange weakening of the fairy magic about the room at the top of the tower, he had made it his business to learn all he could about the small kingdom. Sir Maurice, who seemed to be some minor lord and nothing more, had managed to get the strongest of fairies to combine their magic and protect _something_. What could such an unimportant personage in the realm have to do with such great magic? Outside of the tower and some small minor magic he traced to the middle of the keep, there was nothing there. Sir Maurice himself had no magical abilities, nor did any of the servants or people coming to and from the village. It was that tower…and that tower alone…that was imbued with fairy magic.

He had researched, done experiments, even once or twice shown up outside the keep to lay spells on the place. The only thing he had learned was that it very specifically targeted _him_. He had once even called on Regina, his protégé turned Queen, to see if she could penetrate the shield around the tower and find out what it was they were hiding. Her magic was weaker than his own and while bourn out of his knowledge and abilities, somewhat different. She could do nothing either. Her magic was simply too close to his own.

The only thing that had been left to him was to deal for whatever item they had hidden away from him, to make them so desperate they would call on him. No one who had options open to them would do otherwise. And it seemed this duchy had plenty of options.

He first sent them a drought, destroyed their crops. The fairies brought rain.

He then caused the rain to continue until the crops were drowned. The fairies stopped it, but their crops were ruined. They had to subsist on less than usual and the whole town suffered just a tiny bit. Not enough though. Not enough to call on him. They still believed in the fairies.

When their cattle fell ill and died, still they did not call on him. He knew the fairies were meeting their limits of what they could do, what they were _willing_ to do for one small duchy.

He threw up more roadblocks. Highwaymen who stole from the caravans that were to aid the village, horses that went lame, sheep that ran off. Despite it all, the village managed to keep their heads up, tightened their belts, kept going.

Their patron fairy did the best she could do to keep up with things as they failed one by one. Every time the duchy got back on its feet, he sent some new challenge. He tested the fairies' magic, letting them stretch it to its limits.

And then, when he knew they were about to break, he sent the ogres.

* * *

Maurice looked at his war council, the men who had been there through everything, who had watched him lock his daughter in the tower over twenty years ago, who had seen him deal with one calamity after another. They were stalwart, always supportive.

One of his men strode in, looked around the room. The look on his face was shuttered, but his eyes said all he needed to know. "Avonlea has fallen."

They were words Sir Maurice never wanted to hear. He slumped in his throne and turned to look at Magenta. Their patron fairy shook her head. "I'm sorry Maurice, this is beyond us. I've spoken to Blue and she won't allow us to help any further."

"We're on our own." He stared at the map they had been using for strategy. Already they had lost so many good men. "We cannot defeat them."

The man who had made the announcement, a _good_ man by the name of Gabriel, spoke up again. "We cannot just let them win."

Gaston, a young hot-headed knight, put his hand on his hilt. "I will lead a charge against them, sir. Let my men and I…"

"No," Maurice said, the word sharper. "No your men will not go up against them. Not again. They are not men. They are unstoppable."

And there lay the truth of it. The ogres had been slowly encroaching on their territory over the past year. First coming up along the border from the south and then crossing the river into their eastern territory. They had advanced slowly, but steadily, Avonlea was just along the border, directly east of their duchy. It wouldn't be long now.

"We must do something!" Gaston continued.

Maurice looked around, shook his head. "There is little we can do…"

One of the council members, the eldest, stood up, limping over heavily to stand in front of Maurice. "If the fairies will not help, we must call on the Dark One."

"What? No!" Maurice shook his head vigorously. "My daughter…"

"Is expendable." Others gasped. "What is she Maurice? Just a child trapped in a tower. She will never be anything _but_ that."

Maurice stood, his towering over the smaller, wizened old man. "She is a great deal more than that…"

"Her tower is still protected. Even if we bring the Dark One here, he will not be able to find her." It was barely soothing. Asking the Dark One to come, inviting him to the very keep where his daughter, the one who was supposedly fated to bear him a child, lived. No…he could not do it. He _would_ not do it.

He looked at Magenta and she shook her head. No help would be coming from that quarter.

* * *

When her father walked into the tower, he looked as downtrodden as the time he had found her outside the room. That time he had been so afraid that the mysterious Dark One would swoop down on their keep and drag her off. The creature never had and his worry had lessened over time. So to see him enter the room with such a look scared her.

"Papa, what has happened?" Belle leapt off the bed and rushed to her father, reaching out to grip his hands in hers.

"Belle, oh my Belle." He shook his head, squeezing her hands and refusing to meet her eyes. "The news grows worse. Avonlea has fallen."

She gasped. "So close already?"

He nodded. "Very close. The fairies can do no more to help us."

She shook her head. The fairies had been good to them so far, seeming to go so much further than she thought they ever would. Sometimes she wondered if they felt a bit apologetic for all her family had gone through, losing their daughter's freedom and their mother's life. She was often still angry about the latter. Was all of this really worth it? They knew the Dark One would come for her someday and maybe even now they couldn't avoid that fate, but was it really worth it? Saving her life while sacrificing her mother's? Her father always claimed saving her was worth it, but she saw the deep sadness there, saw the pain that was still so much a part of him. The fairies had not told him the price of the magic. Perhaps they weren't aware of what it was, perhaps they didn't expect their protection magic to do such a thing. In a way, it was a life for a life. Hers was not sacrificed to the Dark One. And her mother's was snuffed out in an instant. "If the fairies cannot do anymore for us Papa, what are we going to do?"

Her father loved to strategize with her, often coming up from war councils and asking her advice. She had little chance to really experience the outside world, but her father had been talking war strategy with her since she was just a child. He brought up maps, wooden soldiers and canons, and they planned out entire wars in their little haven. At first it had just been a game, a way to occupy her time, but later her father realized her strategies were often spot on and though he refused to tell the council where he got his ideas from, he often came to her between meetings to strategize. The rest of the duchy might not respect a woman's brain, but it seemed her father did and so despite a bit of lingering resentment over her lot in life, she loved him for that.

"The council has suggested we call the Dark One." Her father's eyes slid away from hers and he picked at the quilt on the bed.

"The Dark One? That would mean…"

"Yes," he responded with before she could get the words out.

"Are you considering it?" Her words were strangely unemotional.

"No," he stated flatly.

Silence reigned for a moment. Maurice seemed uncomfortable with the whole situation. She had no doubt that he had really come to her for just this very thing. "Papa," she whispered. It got his attention and he finally looked up and met her eyes. "You must call on him."

"Belle, no. If we do…"

"I know, Papa. But I'm protected here aren't I? You said the fairy magic would keep him from finding out I was here and would keep me safe. Wouldn't that still hold true if he were here in this very keep?" And if he were there, right in their very keep, with her just above him in the tower, then surely that would mean he would _never_ be able to find her. It would mean she was well and truly safe, wouldn't it?

"I just don't know, my Belle. It seems dangerous."

"More than the ogres?" She raised one eyebrow.

"Perhaps…"

"I read that he stopped the ogres before, once…long ago…"

"You've been reading up on him?" Her father voice was unnaturally loud in the near-silent tower.

"Hush Papa." She waved one hand dismissively at him. "Don't you think I wanted to _know_ something about him? I'm trapped here because of him. Because you thought that keeping me in a tower was better than risking my associating with him. I wanted to know why."

"The name 'Dark One' was not enough for you?" Belle was somewhat surprised by the sarcasm inherent in her father's voice. She knew he was right. Naturally anyone called by that moniker was meant to be feared. But really, the darkness was nothing more than a partner to the light. Without the darkness there would be no stars, no moon, no appreciation for the lighter parts of the day.

"Dark does not necessarily mean evil, Papa." She watched as his eyebrows shot up. "It doesn't," she reiterated. "Just think of how beautiful the night is. Dark is different. It is not light. But it is not always evil."

He shook his head and did not speak for several moments. "When did you get to be so wise, my Belle?"

"I've had a lot of time to study and think." She didn't mean the words to come out as harsh as they did, but it was the honest truth. Her father always tried to have her friends come visit her in the tower, but most of her time was spent alone with her books. She loved her books. She loved the adventures. But it was a lonely existence and getting lonelier by the year as her friends grew up, got married, had families of their own. Only her dear friend Sophie had been to visit her in the last week.

"I am sorry, my child. If there had been another way…"

They had been through this many times before. "But there wasn't. I know Papa. I know that. But it doesn't change things…does it?"

"No." There really was little else to say that.

"Call him, Papa." Belle leaned forward and put her hand over his much larger one. "Call him and we'll deal with the consequences, whatever they might be."

He squeezed her hand, held it tight in his for a moment. "The last time we dealt with such magic, it enacted an unfair price."

"Mama, I know. But if he's as the books say, he makes deals. He is up front about the cost." There was still a bitterness there, about the fairies. They knew magic was costly but never saw fit to warn them of that, of what the magic might choose as its price.

Maurice sighed, releasing his daughter's hand. "I will do as you say, my daughter. You always have been the smarter one here. Your mother would have been so proud of you." With those words he was gone, leaving Belle alone to contemplate her fate and worry about what calling the Dark One to them would mean.

* * *

"We will call him," Maurice said upon reentering the chamber. He studied the men that surrounded him, noting that some looked ill at ease while others looked relieved. Young Gaston put his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it free of the scabbard at a moment's notice. Gabriel, good stalwart knight that he was, put a hand on Maurice's shoulder.

"It is a wise decision you are making, sir. You will save us all." Maurice nodded. He would, but at what cost? That was yet to be determined. Only the Dark One would know what price he would name and Maurice's duchy was no longer a rich one. They could scarcely afford to feed and clothe those in the village, much less pay an exorbitant price for the magic the Dark One would need to rid them of the ogres.

Maurice leaned in close to Gabriel. He trusted him above the others. "Take a contingent of soldiers to the village. Hide the infants and children…"

"And what good would that do?" The voice that came from across the room was unexpected. Strident and with an accent he didn't immediately recognize, it belonged to none he knew. Maurice and those around him turned almost as one.

Gaston, hot-headed and impatient as always, strode closer to the apparition and pulled his sword free of the scabbard. "Explain yourself." Gabriel rushed forward and pulled him back, leaving the strange man, if one could call him a man, standing alone in his corner of the room. A smirk crossed the apparition's face.

Gaston attempted to raise his sword again, despite Gabriel's hand on his sword arm. Maurice stepped forward, gave a look to the knights around him before finally looking at the creature who had appeared in their midst. He knew who he was. He had no doubt despite there being no descriptions that truly matched what he was seeing.

Maurice stepped nearer to him, away from the protection of the knights around him. Alone, he faced him. "We have called you here for…"

The creature just gave him a scathing look. "Yes, yes." His voice was sharp, all edges of brittle glass and darkness. "I know why you called me here." He took a step closer to Maurice and instantly the knights closed around their leader, swords drawn. The creature sneered at them all and with a flick of his wrist the swords dissipated. His face lit up in a smile and he tittered as his hands came together. "Do your people know _nothing_?" Maurice was sure he heard some sort of exasperation in his voice.

"There are few stories about you in this part of the world." It wasn't much of an explanation but it was the simple truth. He had heard only scant information about the creature known as the Dark One. He didn't even know he was real until the fairy's prophecy.

"Well, we'll just have to change that one, won't we? I daresay this meeting will be talked about for years to come." He waved one hand flamboyantly in the air. "In fact," he took a step near Maurice and looked up at him. Maurice tried to step back but the power of that gaze trapped him, held him in place. "I imagine people are _already _talking about it, aren't they?"

"P…probably," Maurice stammered. When the creature looked away, he was finally able to step back slightly, put some space between them. It was odd that a creature so small could seem so large. He now had an understanding of why the rumors about him were so contradictory.

The creature smiled. "So you wish for protection," he said with a flourish, rolling the "r" and gesturing with one long-fingered hand.

Maurice nodded. "Yes. Protection from the ogres. We wish our duchy to be safe. We wish them gone from here. Can you do it?" Maurice did not like the desperation creeping into his voice, but it could not be helped.

"Of course I can. But it is much, removing the ogres. It's not such an easy thing to do." He seemed almost honest about that. Maurice had no doubt he was telling the truth, but he also knew that the Dark One was rumored to be able to do almost anything. "It will cost you."

Maurice shuddered. "I already know the price of magic." The Dark One shot him a look full of questions but Maurice was not about to answer. "Name your price, Dark One. We will pay it."

A sly grin crossed the creatures face. "Oh will you now? Will you pay _anything_?" He took a few prancing steps forward, leaning close to Maurice in the process. "Anything at all?" He rubbed his hands together, his mouth splitting open to reveal rotted teeth as he grinned widely for the first time. "Oh this _is_ fun."

"We have little gold," Maurice started with.

The creature held up his hand and he stopped mid-sentence. "I make gold. I have no need of more."

"So that rumor _is_ true," one of the other knights muttered and was instantly skewered with the creature's glance. Maurice held up a hand and the knight fell silent, stepping back slightly.

"We have jewels…" The creature gave him a scathing look and turned away.

"No, no…keep your jewels. And your gold. What I want is really quite small…"

"We won't give you any firstborns," Maurice interrupted with and heard the creature scoff as he turned back to him. In just a few quick strides he was directly in front of him again.

"I want nothing of your children." He sneered at him and Maurice was so very tempted to take a step back, away from the understated threat in that voice. The creature's entire body radiated a bizarre energy, almost sickening and yet at the same oddly alluring. It both repelled and drew you closer. He wondered if that were the magic that this creature was imbued with. He would see, upon closer inspection, that there was something human about him and yet otherworldly at the same time. "No, you may keep them and do what you will with them. I need only one thing from you and then I shall rid your land of the ogre threat."

He paused then, a bit of drama. Everyone was hanging on his every word. Everyone was nervous, scared, worried about what he would demand. The creature walked slowly around the room, hands clasped behind his back, stopping to stare at various knights, and making a small noise every time they stepped back from the intensity of his gaze. He didn't speak again until he had made his slow circuit of the room and had come to face Maurice again. "I want whatever it is you're hiding from me in the tower."


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: I just wanted to say a quick THANK YOU for everyone's wonderful comments on my story! There is much yet to come as I'm currently writing chapter 11 and editing previous chapters, so more is on the way, I promise!

* * *

"Oh it is worse than I feared." Claudine came barreling into Belle's room, arms outstretched and eyes almost shut in what looked like pain.

Belle was instantly on her feet and rushing to meet the older woman. Claudine had not been well these past months and Belle feared she had some terrible news from the healer on the state of her health. "Claudine…what is it? What is wrong?"

"They called on him my dear. The Dark One came."

Belle felt a strange sort of relief. He came. They would be safe from the ogres and life would continue on as it was. She reached out for the older woman's hands, clasped them in her own. "This is a good thing, Claudine. We will be safe."

"No my dear, I fear not." She shook her head.

"He will not help?" She was so sure he would. Their duchy had little they could offer him, true, but still the rumors were that he often dealt for something precious and that didn't always mean something costly.

"Worse than that, child." She wrung her hands together, the motion seeming to make her ever more anxious instead of calming her.

"Claudine, you're not making any sense." There was nothing worse for Belle than simply _not knowing_ what was going on. She wouldn't say she was one who jumped to the worst conclusions, but she liked to know all the facts and knowing _something _bad was happening, that perhaps something had gone seriously wrong, left her feeling unnerved and off-kilter.

The door suddenly was flung open and Belle looked away from Claudine. Two of her father's trusted knights were standing in the doorway with looks that closely mirrored Claudine's. Belle took a step back. "What is going on?"

"We're to bring you to the war council, Miss Belle," the taller of the two said. She didn't know him by name, though she recognized him from his occasional visits to her room to retrieve her father. He was older, hair silvering, far too serious.

"I'm to leave the tower?" Her eyes widened as she turned to look at Claudine.

"It's as I was telling you, Miss Belle. The Dark One…he has bargained for _you_." Her voice disappeared into a whisper on the last word and Belle could see she was shaking slightly.

They all knew the prophecy. They all knew that the Dark One was to steal her away. She was all too aware of the danger of bringing him here, of allowing him into the keep with her so close by. They had taken the risk and they had failed. "He knows I am here? He knows who I am?"

"Not quite, Miss," the other knight answered. "He knows something is being hidden from him up here. He has dealt for whatever that might be."

Belle released a breath on a slight sigh. "So perhaps he'll let me go free when he finds out that it's _me_ being hidden here." She knew there was little chance of it, really. She was being kept hidden from him for a reason, one even she was not all that aware of. There must be some reason why he would want her. "Claudine." Belle reached out a hand to her governess, pulled her in close to her. "Is there more to this prophecy? Something about why he might want me?"

Claudine hesitated, just long enough that Belle knew there was. They had kept _something_ from her all these years.

"_Tell me_," she whispered the words. "I must know."

Claudine gripped her hand, one last time. "The prophecy said you would bear his child."

"Come Miss Belle," one of the knights said. "We must go." And then she was taken away, allowed out of the tower for the first time in her entire life. It was strange being led out of the tower, treading the stairs with a bit of daylight streaming in through the window slits, knowing she wasn't sneaking off but was instead allowed to leave. If only it were of her own accord. If only they had chosen this instead of being forced to release her by the Dark One.

She was going to face her fate today. Claudine's words to her kept replaying in her mind. _Bearing the Dark One's child_. Her father had kept that from her and she understood why. She truly did. But at the same time she wished that she had known _something_ of that before. The books she read often called him a monster, a beast. Most indicated they did not believe he was fully human, some sort of demon in a human's body. How could she bear a child to someone who was not a man?

When they stepped into the council room, the knights who preceded her stepped away, leaving her standing alone in the center of the room. Her father and the rest of the knights were off to one side of the room, but it was the _other_ side of the room that drew her attention and kept it. Standing alone was a man…of sorts. Small and slight, dressed in a coat of spiked leather, he was staring at her. His mouth was slightly parted, thin lips stretched over rotted teeth. His hair was an unruly mop of curls, his skin a sickly greenish-grey color. But it was his eyes that held her attention most. Too large in his narrow face, the irises more reptilian than human, they met and stayed locked on hers.

Nothing in the room moved for just a moment as Belle felt frozen to the spot, trapped by that unnerving gaze. Then finally, she took one more step forward and the room erupted into pandemonium. Her father rushed toward her, followed closely by two of the knights nearest him. They were mere feet from her when it seemed they hit some sort of invisible wall, drawing up short and bouncing backward slightly. Another knight put his hand on his scabbard and cursed, finding nothing there. Others attempted to move toward her and were driven back into the wall behind them. So much happened at once and yet Belle could do more than see those events occurring in her peripheral vision. She simply _could not_ look away from the Dark One. Through it all, he had not moved, had not taken his eyes from her.

Into the silence, finally, came his voice. The words were almost a whisper, dark and harsh. "_This_ is what you have been hiding in the tower?" He sounded terribly dangerous but Belle knew right away that any danger here was not directed at her, but at those around her, those who had kept her locked up.

None seemed willing to answer him. Belle tore her eyes away from the Dark One, feeling almost a strange sort of pain at doing it, and looked around the room. Her father was rooted to the spot, his gaze directed at his feet, the corners of his mouth turned down into a deeper frown than she had ever seen on his face. He looked old suddenly, terribly old, and she wondered when the deep lines around his mouth and the dark circles under his eyes had appeared.

Finally she took another step toward him. "They were protecting me." Her voice rang out louder than intended.

In just moments, the Dark One was standing directly in front of her. "Is that so?"

"Yes. From you." She stood up straighter. Despite his small stature he was still taller than she, so she drew herself up as far as she could and faced him.

He tittered as he studied her. "I wonder why that would be. Afraid I would come to steal you away, were they?" He leaned down closer to her and lightly brushed the back of his knuckles down her cheek.

"Belle!" her father called out and raised his fists to the invisible wall separating them.

She glanced briefly at him before looking back to meet the Dark One's eyes once more. "Yes."

He smiled briefly and then his face fell back into seriousness. "And they kept you there your whole life." The words were said with a bit of censure and Belle did not feel obligated to answer. She didn't believe it was really a question anyway. He knew. Somehow he knew.

She remained facing him, refusing to back down, even in the face of such anger. He didn't frighten her. She didn't know why, but he didn't. He seemed almost familiar in a way. Maybe it was just déjà vu, but she felt like she _knew_ him somehow.

"You're a brave one, aren't you?" He sounded almost impressed. "I wonder if you will be so brave when you find out what they have done."

"No more brave than most in this room."

His high-pitched giggle at that caught her slightly off-guard. "I would beg to differ, dearie." He leaned down close to her. "Just look at them. They're quaking in their boots." She turned to look at her father, at the knights around them.

"My father is scared for my life," she whispered.

The Dark One followed her gaze. "If only that were true. Do you know what your father has done?" The last was said on a sneer, the word _father_ sounding almost like a curse.

She shook her head, leaning back slightly away from him. "He has made a deal with you. My life for protection." It sounded so easy when said that way. But what exactly would such a creature do with her?

"Well, dearie, that's not quite true." Finally he removed the pressure from her, backing up and turning away. His movements were fluid, almost cat-like. They were oddly mesmerizing. "You see, I'm going to offer _you_ the deal."

"Why the change?" Belle narrowed her eyes at him. He was giving her a _choice_?

"Not telling." He wrinkled his nose with the statement and Belle's eyebrows shot up.

Belle took a deep breath. This was her chance. She could refuse the deal and now that he knew she was there, she wouldn't have to remain in the tower. She could be a free woman. Or at least as free as any woman in the world today could be. She would be married off to a worthy knight almost as fast as she could blink. It wouldn't be a bad life, but it would be just another prison.

"My friends and family? They would be safe?" His eyes met hers again and she was pleased to see surprise in them. Those strange reptilian eyes of his weren't quite so hard to read from close up. The pupils still constricted or widened depending on mood or light. Right now, as he moved closer to her, the pupils were wide, making his eyes look almost black.

"Yes."

"And the ogres? They will be sent back to where they came, never to return again?" She knew he was a creature of words. Everything she had read pointed to that. If she were to deal with him, she needed to lay out everything, make sure she covered it all.

He nodded his head once. "Of course."

"And I will be safe. You will not harm me." She watched his eyes darken, the corners of his mouth tighten, and she worried she had gone too far.

"What kind of man do you think I am?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You're the Dark One." And she shrugged. What else needed to be said?

"You will come to no harm while under my protection," he said quietly, solemnly, and bowed slightly from the waist. She was about to speak and he held one hand up to stop her. "It's forever, dearie. I won't have you escape two days after your arrival."

She nodded. "Then we have a deal." There was no shaking on it, no signing a piece of paper. They simply agreed to the terms, such as they were, and the deal was struck. And just like that, as simple as all that, Belle's life drastically changed.

The Dark One flicked a wrist and her father and the knights were released from their invisible prisons. Her father immediately rushed to her, stepping in between her and the Dark One and pushing her back and away from him. "Belle, no," he said, not looking at her but keeping his eyes trained on the Dark One. "I cannot allow you to go with this monster."

The Dark One did not look amused.

Belle stepped back around her father, placing one hand on his chest and turning to look at the Dark One. "Please, sir, he knows not what he says. You promised him safety."

He inclined his head at her. "Indeed I did," he murmured. "And he shall have it, whether or not he deserves it. Say your goodbyes, child. We must be off."

She almost jumped to her defense. _I am not a child_. The words froze in her mouth and as he turned away she realized she _knew_ him. "You!" she said, a small bit of horror creeping into her voice for the first time. "On the hill. You were searching for something."

The look on his face was stunned for a moment before he regained his composure. "So I was. It seems that what I was looking for was _you_. How unfortunate that I didn't realize it then. All this theatricality could have been avoided."

Belle wasn't sure what he meant by that. She wasn't sure she really _wanted_ to know. Masking her confusion, she turned away from him and was immediately engulfed in a large hug by her father. He pulled her further away from him, tugging her gently along. Soon they were surrounded by his knights, the Dark One across the room somewhere, alone yet again.

"Belle, you don't have to do this," her father whispered. She knew the Dark One still heard. She had no doubt of it. "We can find another way. We can…"

"Can we? Really? Oh Papa, the ogres have destroyed Avonlea. They're within a day or two of reaching us. Can we really withstand them?" The way he turned away from her, looking at his feet, told her the truth. "You know they are unstoppable by normal means." She glanced back at the Dark One. "The only way to stop them is through _him_."

Her father's shoulders slumped. No words were necessary.

"Papa, the deal has been struck. I am to go with him." Her father just shook his head. It seemed he had few words left in him. "He has vowed to keep me safe, father. Can you ask for more than that?"

"My Belle," he whispered. "There is more to the prophecy, things we did not feel comfortable telling you. I thought it would never matter…"

"I know, Papa. Claudine told me before I was brought down here. I know all of it." She kept her voice soft, didn't allow any of the horror she felt to creep in. He couldn't know the dread deep in her heart. He couldn't know the fright she felt. She didn't know what it all meant, how this child she was to bear him would come about. And so she pushed the thoughts from her mind. He promised to keep her safe. That was the most important thing, the one thing she kept her thoughts trained on. Maybe safe meant something different to him, but to her it meant not being taken by force. He made a _deal_ with her. If he had wanted to, he could have dragged her out of the keep without doing anything in return, without making any deal.

"And you trust him to keep his word?"

Belle thought for a moment. "Have you ever heard of him going back on a deal?"

"No," her father was forced to admit.

"Then I trust him to keep his word." She never heard the Dark One come up behind her, but she felt his presence and turned to look over her shoulder at him. He looked serious standing there at her side. He was too close, but she refused to step away, refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

"We must leave." His voice was softer than she expected at that moment.

Belle turned away from him and reached out to hug her father. This was it then. She didn't know when she would ever see him again, _if_ she would ever see him again. "Do not fear for me father. I will be safe."

And then the Dark One had a hand on her upper arm, pulling her back slightly.

"No, one more minute, please!" It was the first time she felt the tears pricking at her eyes since the knights drew her out of the tower. Nothing felt _real_ until that moment, until she saw the look in her father's eyes, until the Dark One touched her, until she knew _this_ was her new reality.

"We must go," the Dark One repeated.

"Papa, I shall miss you. So very much." The Dark One turned her then, placing one hand about her waist and walking away with her at his side. As soon as they stepped outside the room, a strange sensation assailed her, the ground dropping out from under her feet, and as purple smoke engulfed them, the pair disappeared from her duchy.


	8. Chapter 7

Rumplestiltskin was not often surprised, but when the knights who were sent to retrieve "the object" from the tower appeared with a young woman between them he definitely would call what he felt "surprise." He had known of something in that tower for years, which meant the young woman they brought to him had been locked in that tower since she was quite young, perhaps even for her whole life. That alone would have shocked him, for what parent would do such a thing to a child, but when she drew close enough, when his eyes met hers, he knew who she was.

He had been searching for centuries for her, hunting through all the known realms to find some evidence of the woman from the prophecy. She would lead him to his son, she was more than she seemed, but that was all he knew. He knew not what she looked like nor what her name was. He didn't know when she would be born. He didn't even know how he would _know _he had found her. He had assumed, in fact, that he found the right person when he discovered a young girl just twisted enough up by what her mother had done to her to make her the perfect candidate for casting the curse he needed cast, the one the Blue Fairy had so inadvertently told him he needed to get to where his son was.

But Regina, the one he was grooming to suit his needs, wasn't the right one. As soon as _this_ one set foot in the room, he knew. So while he normally would not deal for a human being, this time was different. _Everything_ was different. He had never agreed to a deal with one person, almost made a concrete deal with him, and then walked away from it to deal with someone else. And with the "object" he wanted from the tower no less. She had agreed to come with him, of course. He knew she would. She was the girl of the prophecy. She would be drawn to him, fate taking her hand and convincing her to make the deal.

They materialized in the Great Room of his castle and the girl at his side stumbled. He caught her up against himself, wrapping his arm tighter about her waist and pulling her against his side. She looked around the room and her eyes widened. "We are in my home," he said by way of explanation and loosened his hold on her as she steadied.

She pushed away from him, standing on her own two feet and shaking off the strange effects of the magic. It had been a long time since he had transported anyone else via his magic. He had forgotten the effect it could have on one not quite ready for it. He let her step away from him, finally releasing the hand from around her waist. He knew his touch was not a welcome one, especially not when he had just taken her from all she knew. He withdrew a bit further from her, arms held loosely at his sides.

"What is your name, child?" Her blue eyes shot to his and narrowed slightly. "It's a simple question, dearie. I can continue to call you 'child' if you wish it."

"Belle," she whispered and he found himself slightly annoyed at the breathy tone. She had been fiery back in her own territory, intelligent and with a strong voice, clashing wills with him. Few who he had dealt with had been so clear on the terms of the arrangement. Most simply said _do this for me_ and let him do it, not worrying exactly _how_ he might do it. They ended up with shoddy bargains, losing something precious to them while only getting exactly what they asked for and no more. But not this Belle. She had asked for specifics and he would respect those. Already the ogres were turning back. Already her family was protected. And she would remain safe, both from him and outside forces, during her stay there.

"Come," he said and led the way through the room. She was forced to keep up with him, the small, heeled shoes she wore making it difficult to keep up with his longer strides. She was a tiny thing. He would have believed her half-grown if not for their encounter on the hillside a few years ago. She must be into her twenty-fifth year now, though her tiny build made her seem much younger. Either way he looked at it, twenty-five was quite young when put up against his hundreds of years

He showed her to a room, small but serviceable. There were other rooms in the castle, much larger, much plusher, but he felt no obligation to give his charge such a place. He had considered the dungeon for just a moment, but had more respect for the tiny creature who had so fiercely dealt with him than that. She would not spend time in the dungeon unless deserved.

"Dinner is promptly at six." And he left her there to return to his Great Room and the wheel that he spent more time at than not.

He had her…finally. It had been centuries since the seer told him about the young woman who would lead him to his son. Centuries in which he had had nothing more than belief to go on that he would find her someday, that his son was still alive, that all would work out in the end. The seer's prophecy before had come true, though not quite in the way he had expected, so he had no reason to believe that even after all this time, his son was alive and he would find him. It was a matter of _when_ instead of a matter of _if_.

He didn't know how. He couldn't _imagine_ how. It had been well over 250 years since he had let him go down that portal. He had gained immortality, but how had his son fared. Had the portal taken him forward in time? Had it taken him to another land where he did not age? He tried not to think on that one too much for he knew of one such land and the thought of his son landing in that place left him as frightened as he had been when he was just a lame spinner all those centuries ago.

So now he had _her_, the next piece in the puzzle. That meant he could leave Regina behind, leave their magic lessons half-complete. She was not the girl of the prophecy and in some ways he was thankful for that. Regina was spiteful, impulsive in ways that made him uncomfortable. Rather than planning, she acted on instinct that often led to the deaths of those around her. But now she would never gain the ability to cast the curse he had planned to enact to bring him to where his son was.

The curse was, thankfully, safely in the hands of someone who had no interest in casting it and would likely simply hoard it as she hoarded so much magic, keeping to herself in her far distant castle, the dragon guarding its lair of treasures. Maleficent was not likely to hand the curse over to Regina and he was fairly certain Regina would never be able to cast it even if she had it in her possession.

This girl though, this _Belle_, she was quite the conundrum. She was quick-witted and highly intelligent, that much he could tell after just that one meeting with her. She dealt with him like she was not afraid of him, like nothing he did would scare her. She _trusted_ him to keep his side of the deal because she had never heard he had done otherwise. She was right about that much at least. He had only broken one deal, the one with his son. None since then had he ever reneged on, no matter how tempted he might have been on occasion. There had been that one time…well, no that was not important. He would keep his side of their bargain as long as she kept hers.

Admittedly, she didn't quite know what hers _was_ yet. He didn't even know if he was to be totally honest with himself. He had simply bargained for her to come with him and remain with him. It wasn't like him to not draw up some sort of specific contract or at least have the other person sign one that they didn't read. Verbal bargains were ones he had left a long time ago when he realized they were too easily twisted, words misremembered either purposely or because of human frailty, sometimes still his own even after all these years.

And so now he had no idea what to do with her or how she was more than she seemed. He only knew that he needed to figure it out…somehow.

* * *

Belle spent the afternoon curled up on the bed, half asleep, dozing briefly before shocking herself awake with a jolt. The room was small, simple, just a bed and a dresser, the mirror that once stood atop it ripped out. She didn't dare leave the room to explore the castle. She had a sense, from the size of the Great Room and the number of stairs and twists it took to get to the room she was in, that it was simply massive. Her father's keep had seemed huge the time she had escaped her lonely tower. But this? It was much _more_.

The Dark One had been nice enough to furnish her room with a clock and she was able to watch the hours go by. It had been nearly one when she was brought into the room.

She spent the first hour fretting, waiting for him to come back, waiting to see what he would do to her.

She spent the second hour curled up on top of the bed, staring off into space, worried about what her life was going to become now that she was no longer tied to her tower, now that the prophecy had come to pass and she, in a way, belonged to the Dark One.

She spent the third hour looking out the window at the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Her tower at her father's keep gave her a lovely view, but the area was mostly rolling hills and flatland. They were located near the ocean and so the hills lead first to flat plains and finally to the beaches and the sea. She had stood on sand only once in her life before. A friend brought a bucket of it up to her tower so she could stick her hands in it and she ended up dumping it on the floor and standing in the gritty stuff, feeling the coolness of it seep in between her toes.

Here it was obvious that the Dark One's castle was situated high in the mountains. She imagined she could feel the cool crisp air, though the room she was in was warm enough. Looking down, she realized she had nothing more to wear than her very serviceable blue dress. She had no fancy clothes to wear, for she never went to balls. She had nothing warm to wear, for she never left the safety of her tower. It worried her, the fact that she simply had _nothing_. She wondered if she could ask the Dark One for more clothes, for something to keep her comfortable. He had said he would keep her _safe_, but not that he would keep her comfortable or attempt to make her happy. She hoped that he would not set out to make her life miserable.

Belle spent the last couple hours curled up under the quilt on the bed, trying not to sleep but so very bored that she found herself drifting off more often than she would have liked. She didn't know what he would do if she were late and she feared what he might do if she did not show at all.

When it was a little before six, Belle sighed and tossed the quilt aside. She ran her fingers through her hair but without a mirror and a brush she could do little with the mass of curls. Instead, she simply tied it back at the nape of her neck with the one ribbon she had. She might not look wholly presentable, but there was little she could do about that.

It took her far too long to find the Great Room and something about this whole thing made her believe it was a test. She didn't intend to fail, though she admittedly did come close. She was about half a second away from calling for him and admitting she was lost when she found her way into the Great Room. He was already seated at the table, a huge feast in front of him.

When she entered, he looked up and raised one eyebrow. "Get lost, did you dearie?"

She knew that he wanted her to admit it, to cry, to tell him that she couldn't find her way around. It was only to be expected after all, considering it was a new place and she had barely been out of one room in her own keep. "No," she responded with and he gave a slight giggle. "I simply lost track of time." She smiled brightly, perhaps a little too brightly.

"I gave you a clock," he grumbled.

"So you did. I'm not used to having to pay much attention to the time." She cringed at the words and was surprised to watch him cock his head slightly to the side.

"Please, dearie, sit. This meal is as much for you as it is for me."

She stared out over the myriad of things on the table and it again struck her as surprising how much food there was, how much would go to waste. Did he have a whole contingent of cooks to provide food for just one man? It was terribly extravagant, but it seemed that there were no others in the castle besides them. "Thank you, sir," she said as she took her seat in the only other chair at the table.

"I have a name, child." He picked up one of the forks at the side of his plate.

"So do I," she shot back and immediately covered her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry Dark One. I do not mean to sound ungrateful."

He froze for a moment and then set the fork back down with a small clink. "That is not my name."

"That is all I know you by." She had wondered, a long time ago, if the creature known as the Dark One had a name. But no one ever spoke of it. The books did not contain it. Her father called him Dark One when addressing him. None seemed to know his name and worse, it _did not matter _to them. It seemed the strange creature who had taken her into his home did indeed have a name. "I'm sorry." She stared down at her plate.

"Rumplestiltskin." The word was quiet.

"Pardon me." Her eyebrows drew low over her eyes.

"Rumplestiltskin. That is my name. You may use it, dearie." He finally picked up his fork and dug into the food in front of him, eating delicately.

Belle started to do the same, but then stopped for a moment. "My name is Belle. You may use _that_."

She was rewarded with a small smirk before he returned to eating.

* * *

The rest of dinner had been an awkward affair. Belle tried to make conversation but each time she did, Rumplestiltskin simply looked up and stared at her. He seemed shuttered here, the openness in his eyes that she had noted back during their deal gone. Every time she got even a couple words out, she was forced to face that stare. Eventually they fell into silence.

It seemed her presence at his castle was not really desired and it made her wonder why he actually dealt for her. Oh, she was sure it was part of this prophecy thing, but surely there was a reason besides that. She only knew that he would take her away, she would bear his child. What did _he_ know, however?

"Why did you want me here?" she asked suddenly and was rewarded yet again with that cold uninterested stare. "Well, surely you wanted me here for a reason."

He didn't answer for a moment, his eyes trained on the plate in front of him. His hair hung down, hiding his eyes from her view. All she could see was the bridge of his nose and the furrow between his brows. "My reasons are my own." His voice was quiet, without that slight nasal edge it had earlier.

"Maybe someday you'll tell me?" She tried to keep her voice light, even though a part of her felt like she was dying inside. She had lost everything that day. Her father, her friends, Claudine. She had traded one prison for another and this one seemed bleak indeed. At least in her tower she had company, people to talk to, friends to share jokes with. Seeing the same round walls day after day, year after year, had worn on her. But she had no more freedom now than she had then. Her cage was bigger, that much was true. But her jailer, of sorts, seemed uninterested in conversing with her.

"Perhaps," he finally said. _At least it was something_.

They finished the rest of the meal in silence and when they were done, Rumplestiltskin simply rose from his chair and waved a hand. The remaining dishes disappeared, the table set to rights. Belle gasped at his easy use of magic. _That_ would take some getting used to.

He turned to her then. "I will bid you good night then. I have much work to do." He started to turn away.

"Rumplestiltskin, wait."

He stopped, but did not turn back toward her. "I trust you can find your way to your room." And then he strode out of the room, moving much faster than she would have expected.


	9. Chapter 8

Previous chapters can be found here.

That first night of sleep was difficult. Belle had never slept anywhere but in the same bed in the same room in the same tower in the same keep. The noises of the tower, the way the wind hit the circular building, the crackling of the fire, all of it was so familiar that she didn't even really notice it anymore. So sleeping someplace new, however comfortable it might have been, was not easy. And the bed _was_ comfortable. The room wasn't large. It wasn't lavish. But the bed was large enough for two of her to sleep on. The quilt was thick and the fireplace never seemed to run low on logs, even though there were none in the room with her. Every time she looked, it was roaring at the same level, keeping the room comfortably warm enough for her without ever becoming too warm. _Magic_…it seemed that her room had some sort of magic spell cast over it and she wondered if she complained aloud about the temperature if the fireplace would raise or lower the temperature at her bidding.

_Fascinating_…

She pulled the quilt tight over her, stretched out on the bed. The extra space was luxurious. The tower room was no larger than the room she found herself in now, but they wanted to fit in a space for sitting, so she had a small bed that was just big enough for her. Stretching out was not something she normally got to do.

She was sure, when she sunk into the bed, that the long exhausting day would wear on her and she would fall fast asleep. Instead, she heard the ticking of the clock, the steady noise keeping her awake, as she realized each second was a moment of her life ticking away, a moment she wouldn't ever get back. It was a strange thought, that. Belle had never worried much about her own mortality. She was young yet, with her whole life ahead of her. Or, at least, whatever sort of life she could manage to have as the…well…as the whatever she was to the Dark One. Ward? Companion? Future consort? She hardly felt like a companion. He didn't seem to relish speaking to her, had seemed to rather be annoyed at her presence despite his demand that she join him. Was this all her days were to be? Tick…tick…tick…she couldn't stop _thinking_ about that damned clock. She had no clock in her room in the tower, time being meaningless to someone who would never go anywhere. So the constant noise, the thoughts it caused, were grating to say the least. She finally got up and picked up the small clock, wondering how such a tiny thing could make so much noise, and set it out in the hall, shutting the thick wooden door between her and the incessant noise.

As silence reigned, she crawled back into bed, ready to welcome blessed sleep. It felt like it had been years since she had slept. Her body was so tired she felt boneless, but her mind was awake, replaying events, wondering when it had all gone wrong. One moment she had been holed up, safe in her tower, the next engulfed by magic and transported here. And she wasn't even sure where _here_ was. The books she had read did not speak of a castle, a place of living, that he was a king of his own domain. They only spoke of his deals, his relations with others. Some implied that he must live in a cave, holed up like a dragon guarding the treasures he had stolen from the desperate. None said he lived in a castle, took his dinner at six o'clock promptly, and retired in the evenings as a normal man would.

Oh, he was no normal man. Even without the threat of his magic, she knew he was not a normal man. His skin was a sickly shade, rough, almost like the skin of some sort of lizard. His eyes were otherworldly, frightening if you looked into them too long, yet mesmerizing at the same time. His hair was an unruly mop of curls that framed his face and hung to just above his shoulders. That hair was her first impression of him, there in the dark on the hillside three years ago. Now she could see that he had the appearance of a human male while still retaining some semblance of the _other_ he seemed to be so known for.

A tapping noise at the window startled her out of her reverie and she threw the covers up over her head, hiding from whatever it was that might threaten her. It was silent for a moment so she stuck her head out. _He said I would remain safe_. But the noise did not _sound _safe. Could he guarantee her protection at all times? She did not know where he disappeared to that evening but she had seen no sign of him on her way to her room, despite the couple wrong turns she had made.

The tapping noise came again and she narrowed her eyes. In the flickering light of the fire, she could see something swaying outside her window. She felt cold dread fill her and yet tamped down on it and stood anyway. _Do the brave thing_. She approached the window and almost sagged with relief when she realized the thing that had so frightened her was in actuality one of the trees just outside her window. She wasn't used to trees being so close. The tower had been too high and those trees that were near the keep had not been tall enough to touch the windows. Here she was on the second floor of the castle and the treetops came up to just past her window. It had been comforting during the day. It was not quite so comforting in the dark of night.

Feeling slightly silly, she curled back into bed. There was no need for being jumpy. The deal was for her safety and thus far she had been kept safe. The Dark One…Rumplestiltskin… had done nothing untoward. She curled back under the covers, trying to ignore the creaking of the bed, the tapping of the tree at the window, the occasional settling of the logs in the fire. The little pops and cracks of a place she had never lived were distracting but finally, exhausted, she managed to close her eyes and drift off.

* * *

For a moment Belle didn't know what had awakened her. When she opened her eyes and looked blearily around the room she could sense nothing out of the ordinary. She could remember no dream, nor nightmare. She heard nothing that she had not heard before she went to sleep, noting that the tapping of the tree had died down sometime during the night. The clock was still outside the door and so she did not know what time it was. It seemed on one hand only minutes later, but on the other it seemed as if hours must have passed.

A scream pierced the air. Loud and long, it was almost inhuman in its grief. Belle put her hands over her ears and hissed with the pain of it. As it died off, she stuck her head out from under the quilt. The scream did not sound male, nor female, barely sounded human at all. But it had come from _somewhere_ in the castle.

She had never heard anything about the Dark One's home, didn't even know where he lived. The books had theorized but none had come up with the massive structure he called the Dark Castle. So she didn't know if the inhuman sound had been a ghost, maybe someone he was torturing. She pulled the quilt half over her head and huddled into the bed. For the next few minutes all was silent. Just as she started to breathe properly again, the scream came again. Louder this time. Longer.

Belle threw the quilt off and sat up. The scream continued this time, sounding more hysterical as the seconds past. She didn't think, couldn't really. She threw open the door to her room and immediately tripped over the clock, biting back a curse as she rammed a toe hard into it.

The scream died off as she hobbled away from her room, each step a bit more painful than she expected. She limped her way down the hall, one hand reaching out to steady herself every time she tried to put weight on her right foot. She was pretty sure she had broken one of the toes, but she didn't want to let that stop her from whatever she was trying to do. Save someone, she supposed, if there was someone to be saved. The scream definitely had a _direction_. It wasn't coming from all around her. She didn't know quite _where_ it was coming from, but she knew she could follow it.

When it came again, she knew she was heading in the right direction. It bounced off the stone walls, amplifying itself as it made its way to her, but she could definitely hear that it was coming from somewhere up ahead. She made her way slowly toward it, pausing every few steps to hiss in pain and raise her foot from the ground. Why oh why did she have to injure herself the first day in the castle? She'd like to pretend that it was her not being used to having so much space, but the honest truth was she was clumsy. She had broken a toe or two before just getting up to use the chamber pot in the middle of the night in a tower she spent all her life in. She just wished she had waited a little longer to break something than she did.

Limping to the end of the hallway, she found herself facing a long winding stairway. This was really _not_ what she needed considering the shape of her foot, but she headed up it nonetheless. The screams came at varying intervals, but each time she had a sense she was getting closer to the source. The way up the tower was difficult and she was sweating and angry and scared by the time she got to the door at the top.

The screams had increased in both volume and frequency the further up the tower she went. Her heart beat faster. All she could imagine was another girl, one much like herself, tied up in the tower, perhaps even tortured by the Dark One. Perhaps her father was right. Perhaps he was a monster. Perhaps the books were right and he was some inhuman creature, a demon, a succubus. Perhaps this was where he kept the infants and children he stole in his deals, skinned alive and used for some nefarious purpose.

She didn't know what she would find.

She didn't think she was brave enough to face whatever was on the other side of the door.

She didn't know what she would do if she found something truly horrifying there.

And yet she couldn't stop herself. Drawn to this tower high up in his castle, she reached out and put her hand on the door.

The screams stopped, leaving a silence in their wake that was almost as loud in her ears as the screams were. She could hear the beating of her own heart, the rush of blood through her system. She waited a moment, waited for the scream to start again, waited for anything except that dreadful silence.

She didn't understand.

She took a deep breath, held it, and pushed at the door as she released the breath.

Nothing untoward happened as the door slid open with a slight creak. She nearly shut her eyes as she stepped into the room it revealed. There was nothing there.

Well, there were _things_ there, but nothing out of the ordinary. In the flickering candlelight, she could see the circular walls lined with shelves of books that disappeared into the darkness beyond the weak light. A large table in the middle of the room contained potion bottles of all shapes and sizes and was heaped with open books and scattered papers. She could see no instruments of torture, could see no child being strung up.

A creaking sound drew her eyes and there, half hidden in the darkness, she could just barely see Rumplestiltskin. He was seated at a large spinning wheel and she remembered the legends about his spinning straw into gold. He seemed not to notice her as he concentrated on his task, the wheel spinning steadily, making the rhythmic noise that broke the intense silence.

"Is there a problem, dearie?" His voice startled her and she shook herself out of her reverie to stare at him. He didn't shift position as he spoke, his hair hiding any expression as he continued to watch his own nimble hand as he fed the straw into the wheel and watched it turn into spun threads of gold. She found the action mesmerizing.

He stopped for just a moment and raised his eyes up to her.

She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. I heard screaming?"

"There was no screaming." He looked back to his work. The wheel sped up again, the thread started to form.

"You heard nothing? It woke me out of a sound sleep." And it drew her here, to his tower, to _him_.

"Indeed not. The castle has been blessedly silent until you stepped into this room." He continued with his task while Belle stood awkwardly just inside the door. Was that a dismissal? His words were sarcastic, but said with little bite.

"So no screaming then." She found that hard to believe. It wasn't a dream, a nightmare, that brought her to this tower. She had heard it, still felt the hairs at the nape of her neck raised from the eerie sound. It had woken her out of her rather fitful sleep and had been so horrible, so utterly pitiful, that she had chosen to follow it this far instead of trying to ignore it.

"No screaming." He paused for a moment and then looked up at her, just briefly. Though he was cloaked in darkness, she could feel his eyes on her. "Go back to bed, Belle. There is nothing here for you."

She hesitated. "I'll bid you goodnight then." Turning slowly, she limped a couple feet back toward the door. The trip back down would be long. The adrenaline of the rather anxious walk up to the tower had drained out of her. She felt exhausted and the pain was finally starting to really register, the throbbing in her toe most uncomfortable.

A hand gripped her upper arm and startled, she turned her head to see Rumplestiltskin standing there. He immediately released her, as if touching her had burned him somehow. "What have you done to yourself?"

Her first reaction was to deny it. She had done nothing to herself. It was his dratted clock that had done it, ticking loudly and forcing her to set it somewhere that her clumsy feet could run into. Sarcasm was just about on the tip of her tongue when her eyes met his. The small furrow between his brows was not something she expected to see. "I tripped." She could feel the blush creep up her cheeks and was thankful that only a few candles lit the large tower room. "Over the clock…"

"Why was the clock on the ground?"

His confusion made her let out a small laugh. "The noise. I'm not used to it. I set it outside the room."

"I see…"

Belle decided that perhaps a hasty retreat, or at least as hasty as possible, was in order. Attempting to turn, she was stopped by his hand once more. "You're hurt."

"I think my toe is broken." She bit her lower lip as she looked away from him. This was a rather inauspicious beginning.

He nodded and waved a hand delicately in the air. Purple smoke invaded the room and moments later there was a settee off to the side. Several candles in sconces were arranged around the back of it, leaving it as the one brightly-lit area in the room. "Come," he said, and held out a hand to her. She hobbled a little bit closer to him, putting the weight heavily on her uninjured left foot. He came around her left side and wrapped an arm around her waist. Still she tried to walk on her own to the settee. Slightly exasperated at her stubborn determination, he finally said "Just lean on me. It will be easier."

She did so, exhausted from the struggles to remain upright and was relieved to feel somewhat weightless. His arm wrapped tightly about her waist, not an unwelcome pressure considering the situation. He helped her to the settee and she practically fell onto it, heaving a sigh at being off her feet for the first time since she hurt herself.

He sat on the other end. "Here, put your feet up here." Curious about what he was going to do, finding it slightly odd that the famed Dark One might actually be worried, she did as he bade. He slid her bad foot onto his lap and without even so much as a movement from him, one of the candles left the sconce and floated down to shine on her foot. He touched a finger gently to the outer toe and she let out a small hiss with the pain. "Ah yes, it does appear to be broken." He looked up at her out of a face that was still lowered toward her foot, his grin almost wolfish.

"I told you it was."

He lifted his face up toward her then. "I wonder how you know that," he said and cocked his head slightly to the side.

"I do this a lot. I'm sorry. It seems you've taken a clumsy girl into your household." She was embarrassed to admit that. Young women of court were expected to be graceful, courteous, and Belle was neither.

"Well, no matter. We can fix this one up easily enough." He waved a hand over her foot and it was engulfed briefly in the purple smoke of his magic. It was almost oily in feel and tingled oddly as it danced across her foot. The pain was gone in an instant, the bruise that was starting to form retracting before her very eyes.

She gasped. Magic did indeed come in handy from time to time.

He reached out and grasped her foot lightly, touching the toe that she had broken. "There. All better."

"Thank you." Her words seemed to startle him and he released her foot immediately, pushing up and off the settee, stepping away from her.

"Your feet…are they always so cold?"

She shook her rather fuzzy head. "I have no slippers."

He studied her for a moment. "You have nothing."

"No, nothing at all. Except the dress I'm wearing." She didn't quite know how he had missed the fact that she left with nothing, but here they were nonetheless.

He nodded once, curtly. "I will remedy that tomorrow. But for now…" He made a small hand motion and her feet were suddenly engulfed in delightfully warm slippers. She had never felt such amazing comfort on her feet. Those she had back home had been thin and serviceable. These were plush, stuffed with something that made her feel like she was walking on air.

"They're warm!" she exclaimed, realizing the warmth of the slippers were from more than the plush material.

"Magic," he said with a ghost of a smile. "They will stay as warm as you need them."

She moved her toes around in the comfortable footwear. "Well, thank you for them. They're lovely." She hadn't thought he would give her such an unexpected gift. New clothes she was appreciative of and looked forward to having something to wear besides the dress she was currently in, but the slippers imbued with magic were going further than she expected him to.

"It's no matter," he said, waving one hand somewhat awkwardly in the air. "Do you need an escort back to your room?"

Was he honestly attempting to play the gallant? She felt so off-kilter that night, like she had entered a strange place with a Dark One who was so far from what she expected that she simply no longer expected anything of him. "The screams…" she started with.

"Of course." She wasn't sure she believed that he didn't hear them. "Would you...prefer to remain here?"

She froze, stared at him for a moment. "Would it be an imposition?"

In answer he raised one hand and she was again struck by how graceful and nimble his hands were, almost as if they were their own entity. A twist of his wrist brought the swirl of his magic, almost becoming familiar now, and a blanket and pillow appeared on the settee. She supposed that was answer enough.

She curled up on the settee, which was just big enough for her to lay down comfortably on and wrapped the blanket around her. Rumplestiltskin returned to his wheel, sitting down and starting it turning once more.

Despite the oddity of the situation, the creaking of the wheel lulled her to sleep.


	10. Chapter 9

The next few weeks passed by in almost a blur. Her first morning at the castle she had woken in her own bed in her serviceable little room and she wasn't even sure how she had gotten there. She remembered falling asleep in the tower room, curled up comfortably on the settee, the Dark One nearby at his wheel. Her sleep had been easy for the rest of the night, the creaking of the wheel lulling her to sleep and no screams disrupting it. It was strange really, how easily she had fallen asleep in his presence.

But somehow she had woken up in her own bed, curled beneath the quilt. She was still dressed in the crumpled blue dress she had arrived in, but she had been tucked tightly into the bed. _Someone_ had done that. At the time, she assumed he had some servants who managed to take care of her.

In the weeks after that incident, she realized that was not reality. He had no servants. He told her, one evening at dinner, that magic was his only servant and that the castle would do her bidding if she voiced what she needed. Breakfast? The castle took care of it. Candlelight? The castle took care of it. She had felt odd talking to the air at first, but she was almost starting to get used to it.

_Almost_…

That morning she found herself waking up in her bed, though she had again fallen asleep in the tower room. The screams had come last night. They didn't come every night, but when they did, they sent her up the stairs and to the tower room. She had tried resisting it one night, tried to remain in her bed, but the screams became louder, more hysterical, and she ended up in the tower room shaking with fright. Like every night the screams followed her, they stopped as soon as she touched the door to the tower. She would find Rumplestiltskin there and he would do no more than give her a look and a nod, allowing her to simply retreat to the settee and curl up. He never seemed to remove it from the room for every time she was chased up the stairs by the screams, it was there, exactly where it had first appeared. _Always_ she fell asleep there and _always_ she woke up comfortably tucked into her own bed.

Stretching and yawning, she forced herself to rise for the day. It wasn't that the room was cold, not like the many cold days she found it difficult to get out of bed in her own keep. Her room in the Dark Castle was always pleasantly warm, comfortable but not overly heated. Getting out of bed was never a struggle, except that she often wished she could sleep longer. She had little to do with her days here except wander the castle and explore. It was exciting in its own way for she had never had so much _space_ before, but there was no rush to get through it all. Someday she would no doubt know every nook and cranny of the castle and then what would she do with her time?

She quickly changed out of the shift she had worn to bed. The morning after her arrival she had awakened to a change of clothes laid out for her. She had been stunned to find the outfit, including the underthings, all fit her perfectly. It left her feeling a bit out of sorts, for how did he know what would fit? How did he come by it? She knew only a little about magic, what she had learned from the books she had managed to squirrel away on it, so she wasn't sure if magic could somehow take her measurements and create an outfit that fit her perfectly. When she opened up the large wardrobe, she found more outfits, similarly styled and fitted. Some were beautiful gowns and she wondered if she would ever have use for such finery. Some, like the one she had put on that day, were comfortable and serviceable. In the drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe she had found more underthings and nightwear. Too afraid to address the issue with Rumplestiltskin, she had opted instead to simply dress nicely and thank him for the changes of outfit.

After a few weeks, she was far more comfortable in his presence. He still was enigmatic, often did not speak to her at dinner, and sometimes fell into black moods that sent her racing to her room to lock the door behind her. She never felt truly _un_safe. She felt more like things were unstable. One moment he was gallant, speaking to her as if she were an equal. The next he banished her from the room with a sarcastic comment.

But he did as he promised he would do. He kept her safe. She could ask no more of him for the moment.

When she arrived in the Great Room that morning, Rumplestiltskin was already seated at the large table, tea set in front of him. His hands were steepled together and he didn't look up as she arrived. It took him a moment to even notice her presence and then he simply waved his hand at the other chair.

Belle sat quietly, watching him for longer than she would have thought he'd find comfortable. "Is something wrong?"

"Hmmm?" was his response. He didn't even look up at her, just simply continued staring at the tea set and empty cup in front of him.

"Would you like some tea?" she said a little bit louder.

He finally glanced up at her and a strange look flitted briefly across his face. If Belle were to describe it, she'd say he almost looked startled, as if he didn't expect anyone else to be there. "Yes, please."

She poured a small spot of milk into his cup, followed by the tea and two spoonfuls of sugar, heaping of course. He raised one eyebrow as she did so. It wasn't her job to pay attention, really. In fact, she had been given no job at all. She had thought with the lack of servants that perhaps she would be asked to take care of some things around the castle that had been sorely neglected, but instead she was treated as if she were a guest in his home. He expected her to raise no finger to help out. Magic would take care of their needs. He asked absolutely nothing of her, except to take dinner with him in the evening. Yet Belle felt she should watch, pay attention, try to keep him at least content if not happy.

And one thing she was sure of, the more time that went on at the castle, was that he was not happy. He didn't speak to her much, though he had started to ask her the occasional question when she found herself up in the tower with him. That seemed to be his safe haven, sitting there in front of his spinning wheel. It was an odd occupation for a man and an even odder one for a sorcerer, but he seemed comfortable there. She often wanted to ask him about it, about why he spun, why straw into gold. But she hadn't gotten up the nerve. Instead she watched him from her place on the settee and wondered. He seemed so very human when seated at the wheel.

He had taken only a few sips when he looked back up at her and finally met her eyes. "I need to leave today."

Belle's eyebrows drew lower over her eyes. "Leave?" She hadn't yet been alone in the castle. She had spent whole days by herself, only seeing him again at dinner and then in the tower late at night. But she knew he was in the castle _somewhere_. And that was different somehow than being completely alone in the large structure.

"You will be safe." The words were serious. He had spoken them several times and Belle was starting to wonder if she came across as somewhat skittish. Really, the only person she should be afraid of here was Rumplestiltskin himself. Yet a few weeks in his castle, in his presence, told her there was little to fear there.

He had a temper. That much she knew. She had heard him tossing things about, once or twice the sounds of glass breaking could be heard from the tower room, but he had so far treated her with nothing but detached politeness. "I know…"

"Before I go, I need to show you something." He stood then, setting the teacup down on the table.

"You didn't finish your tea," she pointed out.

"It will keep. Come." He gestured with one hand and turned on his heel to walk out of the room. Belle rolled her eyes behind him and with one glance at her cooling tea, followed him. He clearly wasn't used to catering to anyone else. She rushed after him, trying to keep close. He never turned back to her and it was obvious he simply expected her to be there. The house slippers he had given her, functional and less plush than the slippers she had been wearing at night, made her steps silent. Only the sound of his heeled boots against the stone of the stairs could be heard.

He led her to a different tower than the one that she had been going to for all those nights. This one she hadn't explored yet, though it was on her agenda. She had no idea what it contained, what sorts of treasures she might find in the rooms. It seemed Rumplestiltskin was a bit of a collector, hiding away items both precious and mundane in the various rooms of his castle.

When he finally reached the top of the tower, one that even with her lack of directional sense she knew to be opposite the one with his spinning wheel in it, he stepped back and turned to look at her. There was a bit of surprise etched into his features, raised eyebrows, eyes a bit wide. He stared at her for a moment before pushing the door open and gesturing her in ahead of him.

Belle did as he asked, almost without speaking, and then simply stopped and stared. Rumplestiltskin, who had walked in behind her, barreled right into her, knocking her off balance. She started to fall forward, arms thrown out to stop her fall, when she felt one arm snake tight around her waist and she was drawn back tight up against him.

For a moment she couldn't breathe, the sensation of being simply so _close_ to him taking her breath away. He didn't release her right away, his arm loosening just slightly as she steadied and was able to look around her.

It was a library.

A library the likes of which she had never seen before.

The other tower room contained many books, some that she noted were quite old, but upon quick examination of the titles she had found they were all magical tomes, no doubt needed for his many spells and potions. A glance at the titles nearest her told her these were a jumbled mess of novels and historical texts. "Oh," she whispered.

"Yes," came his voice, far too close to her ear. He was still holding onto her, had not managed to quite release her from the embrace they had found themselves in.

"I can…use these?" She turned her head slightly and met his eyes from far too close, feeling the slight tickle of his hair on her cheek.

For just a moment, just the space of one breath, they stayed locked there. And then he released her, stepping back quite suddenly and folding his arms over his chest. Belle stepped away, her stance mirroring his.

"They are for you, if you want them?" Belle just watched him, wide-eyed. "I noticed the way you stared at the books in the other tower. You looked like a starving man who found himself at a banquet he couldn't partake of."

Belle smiled, perhaps her first genuine smile since she had arrived in his castle. Without thinking she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He did not return the embrace, stiffening in her arms, and so she quickly released him and put some space between them.

"You're not who I thought you were at all." Shaking her head, she turned away and pulled the first book off the shelf that her hand came to.

"Who did you think I was?" When she looked back he had one eyebrow raised.

"I was told you were a demon who ate children." She wasn't sure if she should be honest, but it was, after all, a reputation she would guess he had cultivated.

He gave a slight bark of laughter, shaking his head. "No, no they have it all wrong." The words were muttered under his breath. "I hunt them for their pelts."

The book she was holding dropped to the floor and she winced as she heard the spine crack slightly. His face no longer held the amusement it did a moment ago.

"That was a quip, dearie. Not serious." He waggled a finger at her. "We need to work on your sense of humor."

He left her then, with another quip about expecting everything to be in the exact same spaces they were when he gave her the place. She didn't believe that one quite like she did the first. Shaking her head at his strange humor, she turned to explore the library more. There was no rhyme or reason to the organization, so far as she could tell. Science books were placed next to history ones with fiction filling the space between. She saw books on anatomy and medicine, histories of worlds she had never heard of, a few that even seemed to be about music, and was that…_Oh_…She blushed at a couple of the titles, deciding that those should be avoided for the time being. There were plenty of other things to read after all.

She chose a book almost entirely at random, one on the history of a land called Agrabah, and settled down on the settee, a matched set with the one in the other tower, to read.

* * *

He had tried to sleep that night, after he returned from the deal he had to make. It was a fairly successful one, trading a ring the person didn't know was enchanted for a successful harvest. Their crops had been in sorry shape before he arrived, drenched by too much rain and then nearly wiped out when a hard frost hit the area early. He had saved them and walked out with the ring he needed for a future deal.

It came in handy sometimes, this seeing the future thing he had. He tried to forget that when it came to his new ward, it seemed his ability to see beyond each moment with her was murky at best. And that was not for lack of trying. He had tried, several times in fact, to figure out where she fit into his future, why she was necessary, who exactly she was outside of the daughter of some provincial knight-turned-leader.

So far his success had been limited.

Well, if he wanted to be truly honest with himself, his success had been entirely nonexistent.

That night he had fallen asleep easily enough. The transporting through space to so far away in the realm had exhausted him, a price he sometimes had to pay for the magic. With the enchanted ring tucked safely away in his cabinet of curiosities, he was able to sink into the large featherbed and fall asleep almost instantly.

_It's dark out when he arrives, shadows forming from the moonlight above. Ahead of him he can see him, his son. He's just as he remembers. Small, young, the embodiment of all that is good, the complete opposite of what he himself has become. The Dark One, riddled with evil and dark magic._

_His son leads the way, always calling back to him. He gets further and further beyond where he is, just a small form in the darkness. He hangs back, afraid, uncertain. He can feel eyes on him in the dark. They are waiting. Hoping. They will be on him if he falters._

_And falter he does. He slips, grips the nearest tree._

_"Son I cannot go."_

_But his son is too far ahead, he cannot hear him._

_He crawls on hands and knees following the boy. _

_He can't catch up._

_The eyes get closer, close in around him._

_Suddenly there's a swirling green cyclone and it moves past him, heads toward his son. He can hear wailing, the cries of the dying, the children trampled by the ogres._

_"But I saved them!" he shouts. _

_The cyclone moves ahead, closer to his son. He can see him lit up, his face a strange greenish hue. "Bae! Run!"_

_But Bae doesn't. "Father!" he calls. "It's for us. It will save us."_

_And he freezes. The wailing gets louder. They're in his ears, his brain, all around him. He puts his hands over his ears and wails along with them._

_The cyclone swirls on ahead and suddenly his son is being dragged into it. "Father, follow me!" _

_But he cannot._

_His son is swallowed up._

_All is silence_.

The nightmare chased him to the tower room again, as it always did. He had barely taken his seat at the wheel when Belle poked her head in. He didn't know why she even waited for him to wave her in anymore. She knew she was welcome.

He was almost getting used to her presence there in the evenings that he spent in the tower. She had shown up every time he was there, sometimes a good half hour after his nightmare had chased him there, sometimes just moments later. This time she had a book in hand as she entered the room.

"I see you've been enjoying the library," he said as she settled herself in. He didn't speak to her every evening they were there. Sometimes the nightmare robbed him of speech, sent him to his wheel to forget. But sometimes he found that conversation eased the burden a bit. He never told her about it, choosing instead to ask her mostly inconsequential things about her life until she drifted off.

She nodded, hugging the book close to her chest. "I have been, yes. Thank you."

He made a dismissive sound. "Did you find something enjoyable to read?"

She lit up at the question and he couldn't help but notice how it changed everything about her. She often looked lost, a tiny figure in a castle too large for just two people, but when she smiled, she looked almost content. He often hoped she was that, at least. She sat down on the edge of the settee and set the book on her lap. "Several somethings, actually." She raised the book up slightly. "This is book number three."

He raised one eyebrow. He had left her alone soon after they shared their morning tea, so she had had several hours but he didn't expect her to make her way through two books and already be onto a third.

"Well, I'll just let you read, shall I?" He turned back to his wheel. The nightmare was still there, just behind his eyelids if he dared to close his eyes.

She nodded. "Would you want me to read to you?"

Her voice sounded hesitant and for a moment, just a moment, he was almost tempted. Instead he just gave her a look and turned back to his wheel.

She fell asleep soon after that, as she often did, the book still held in her hands. He spun for a short while longer but finally stood and walked to where she rested on the settee. She was curled comfortably beneath the blanket, head resting on the pillow.

He gently pulled the book from her hand and while she shifted as he did so, she did not waken. Crouching next to her, he watched her, the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the relaxed muscles of her face. She looked peaceful sleeping there.

He wondered what brought her to the tower night after night. She said she still heard screams, sounds his extra sensitive ears never heard. But that first night when she had come running into the tower room, frightened out of her wits, he knew she had to have heard _something_. No ghosts resided in his castle. He had made sure of that. No magic would have created the sounds. Perhaps it was born of her own fears, perhaps the fairy magic that had protected her for her entire life was warring with the magic of his castle. He had yet to figure out _why_ she was drawn to the tower each night he was there. He wondered if she came every night and turned back when she discovered the door barred to her entry on those nights the nightmares never forced him to his spinning wheel.

Reaching out a hand he almost touched one curl that had fallen over the side of the couch, one long silky strand that beckoned him. _No_…he did not deserve such things in life.

He stood again, shaking himself off, and with a wave of his hand, Belle disappeared from the room to be tucked safely away in her own bed, far away from the temptation of monsters. Her book followed soon after.

With a sigh he returned to the wheel, allowing the rhythmic motion to calm his frantic thoughts.


	11. Chapter 10

A/N: Thank you again SO MUCH for all the amazing reviews! It means so much that so many are reading and enjoying this story! I hope you enjoy this next installment.

* * *

The library managed to keep Belle occupied for much of her time in the castle, as did wandering and exploring. Many of the rooms were empty or stuffed full of dusty old furniture that simply didn't interest her. Occasionally she came across trinkets, old pieces of jewelry that probably had meant something to _someone_ but were tucked away in an unused room of the castle. One of those _small precious_ items Rumplestiltskin liked to take off those he dealt with but which he obviously had no use for.

What use, after all, did one have for a piece of jewelry when one spun straw into gold on a regular basis? It seemed he did it every night, for whenever the screams caused her to rush to the tower, he was there, already at his wheel, with spools of gold thread carelessly strewn about him.

That had become a ritual of sorts for them, though she noticed it had begun happening less and less over time. The first month she was there, she had spent nearly every night in the tower room. The screams always came sometime after midnight, sometimes near whimpers of pain, sometimes full-blown hysteria. And after that first night she knew where they would lead her. By the middle of the second month she noticed that she was only going to the tower room a few days a week. There was no set pattern to it, but every time it happened, she would sigh, put on her warm slippers and wrap, and tread the long hallways and even longer staircase to reach the room at the top of the tower.

She was never unwelcome there and that had ultimately been a huge relief for her.

Now in her fourth month in the castle, she realized she was only going to the tower about once a week. The rest of the time she generally slept through the night. The noises of the castle no longer bothered her. The tree outside her window had become a welcome friend, a sound she found strangely comforting. The clock no longer bothered her as it now made no noise at all. When she had awakened after that first tower visit, the clock she had hurt herself on was back on the mantle, completely silent. It had been so ever since. She suspected Rumplestiltskin had put a silencing spell over it, for it _worked_, but the ticking noise that so bothered her had disappeared.

This particular morning, Belle found herself in the Great Room. Rumplestiltskin had not yet arrived for tea. She had slept through the night and felt fairly refreshed, so she had come down early. The tea set was on the table, the tea warmed and ready for them. It gave her some time to stand at the window and watch the outside world.

For all her freedom to wander the castle, and she was most thankful for that, she had never been allowed outside. She was still trapped in a way. It particularly bothered her right now. High up in the mountains, spring had come late to the Dark Castle. But come it had. She could see the birds flitting from treetop to treetop, the leaves beginning to grow back on the barren trees. The grass was still a bit brown but regaining its lush green color. She had wondered what the season would look like up in the mountains instead of on the plains near the shoreline. She had wondered what it would smell like. She had only been outside once and that was at the height of summer. What would the return of so much life smell like?

With a sigh, she turned away from the window, knowing it wasn't something she was likely to ever experience. Maybe someday, when he trusted her more, when he knew she wouldn't go back on her deal, Rumplestiltskin would allow her out of the castle. He had gardens that were sorely in need of some tending and she could find some work there, pulling weeds and returning them to their former glory.

"You feel trapped." His voice coming from behind her surprised her and she held a hand to her chest briefly.

"I…" Did she? She didn't want to feel ungrateful, for she did have so much more space than she had had for most of her life. He raised an eyebrow at her and she looked down at her hands. "I wouldn't say trapped, no. But it's a beautiful day. I've never been outside before…"

"Except that one time."

She smiled at the memory. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had met him on top of that hill, her one night of freedom. It was not an encounter she would soon forget. Even all these years later she could remember the feel of the wind on her face, the companionable silence that had settled over them until they heard the search parties. "Yes," she finally responded with. "Except that one time."

He was already seated at the table, pouring tea for both of them and so she moved to his side, gathered up her teacup and then returned to her vigil at the window. If she couldn't actually go outside, she could at least enjoy it vicariously.

Silence reigned for a time and she sipped at her tea. Tea was one thing that Rumplestiltskin consistently made from scratch, rather than making his magic take care of. When she had asked him about that he had given her a wrinkle of his nose and told her magic never quite got tea right. This particular blend was her favorite. It had a slightly smoky flavor and he always insisted on using a strange metal contraption, something he called a _samovar_ to heat the water for it. It was exotic, from some far off land, and she often wondered how exactly he came by it.

"We could go outside, if you wanted." His voice came from far too close behind her and Belle, startled, jumped back a step or two with a yelp. The teacup she was holding fell from suddenly nerveless hands.

"Oh!" she exclaimed and immediately dropped to her knees to grab the cup. She wasn't so worried about the tea that had spilled out. She had been almost done anyway and she was sure magic could take care of that. But his tea set was lovely and, she assumed, antique. Grasping the handle in her hand she took a close look at the cup. Much to her dismay, it appeared the drop had indeed done some damage. "It's chipped." She looked up at Rumplestiltskin who still stood nearby and realized she was _far_ too close to him and from her vantage point she nearly aligned with certain parts of the male anatomy she didn't want to think about. She stood, far faster than intended, and took a few hasty steps backward.

Rumplestiltskin merely smirked at her, the look on his face telling her all she really needed to know. "It's just a cup," he said with a small hand flourish and retreated.

Belle took a deep breath. "Were you serious?"

"Yes, it really is just a cup…"

"No I meant…"

"About going outside? Yes." He nodded once. "It seems I have sorely neglected you and perhaps I should remedy that with a tour of the grounds. You are not a prisoner here Belle, despite the terms of the deal." Which, now that Belle thought about it, had never really been hammered out. She came to live with him in his castle, that much was her side of the deal, but what else? He had demanded nothing of her except occasional companionship. She would have thought he dealt for her out of loneliness, but he didn't know she was in the tower until he had _already_ completed what he thought was going to be the deal with her father.

She tried to remain calm. Would he change his mind if she rushed him with a hug? She had seen his reaction to her touch when he showed her to the library, the way he stiffened in her arms. It was almost as if he wasn't used to anyone touching him at all. "I would like that very much." Her first outing, her first _real_ outing, where she wasn't afraid of being caught, where she could observe things during the daylight hours instead of during the dark of night.

His smile was indulgent. "Get yourself ready then. We'll leave in an hour." She started to walk away. "But remember dearie, if you're late, we won't be going."

She laughed as she rushed out of the room, giddy at the thought of even this tiny bit of freedom.

* * *

He wasn't quite sure what he had been thinking, offering to take her on a stroll about the castle grounds. The Dark One did not stroll, did not offer tours. He also didn't deal for fully-grown women and allow her to sleep in his tower room while he spun. And he most certainly didn't watch her while she slept and wonder how soft her skin would feel against the rougher texture of his own.

He was a monster and monsters took what they wanted.

And yet here he was, standing in the Great Room waiting for her to come down from getting ready. He had said an hour and it was nearly that time.

A moment later Belle flew into the room, hair flying out behind her, her cheeks already a bit pink from her headlong race down the stairs. "There was no need to rush."

"But you said…"

"We still need to work on your sense of humor, dearie." He held out his hands and a cloak appeared. "Come, it may be spring, but it's still cool out."

Her eyebrows shot up as he helped her into the cloak, tucking it neatly around her and doing up the clasp with quick, agile fingers. He brushed his fingers just lightly against her neck as he did so, noting the skin was as delicate and soft as he expected, before withdrawing rapidly.

"Shall we then?" he asked her. It appeared he was going to play the gallant today, whether he wanted to or not. He held out one arm, indicating that she should precede him out the door.

Rather than do that, Belle reached her arm out and linked it with his, drawing in close to him and stepping out of the door at the same time as he did.

This outing was probably going to be a mistake. Yet he couldn't stop himself from looking down at her briefly and smiling.

* * *

Belle didn't know what had caused her to reach out and grasp Rumplestiltskin, pull him close, so that their stroll through the grounds meant that every step was taken with his brushing up lightly against her. He seemed so taken aback by it at first but it did not take long, just a small circuit around the nearest of the gardens, for him to relax a bit.

The grounds around the Dark Castle were as lovely as she thought they might be, looking down on them during the winter months. She had feared that they would be bleak, once spring hit, full of dead thorny bushes and trees left to rot. Instead, she noted that they were starting to come to life. The gardens of the Dark Castle were neglected, certainly, and that was as much by design as it was accidental.

Rumplestiltskin himself was slightly wild. Sometimes, when she reached out and touched him, he was as skittish as an animal who didn't quite trust humans. She was amazed to see his reaction to a simple touch, a friendly hug. He often backed away with hands raised, eyed wide. Sometimes he froze, like a deer catching sight of a hunter's bow. Sometimes he fled from the room, the fingers of one hand rubbing together in a sort of nervous tic.

And so the gardens suited him. Wild, uncared for, a bit unloved.

"I could take care of these," Belle spoke as they walked slowly through what appeared to be a rose garden. "A little tender loving care, a few weeds removed, and it would prosper." She wasn't quite sure if she was talking of the garden or of the man.

"I quite like them wild." He sounded almost irritated at her suggestion.

"As do I." She nodded in agreement. "There's a beauty to the wildness. It saddens me to see so many wanting to tame it, to force it into the same patterns as everyone else's gardens. But a little tending can allow them to grow unimpeded"

"You like unique things, then?" he asked and she heard a certain hesitancy in his voice.

She looked up at him, wondering if he too were talking just about the garden. Of all the men she had met, and she had no doubt after all this time that Rumplestiltskin was indeed a man, he was the most unique. There was no one else like him in the world, from his otherworldly features to his dark quips to his strange occupation with spinning straw into gold.

"I do," she said and squeezed his arm slightly. He looked away. She wished she could have a chance to truly read his expressions, but he tended to always look away in these moments. His unusual eyes could sometimes be easy to read, not so different from anyone else's, but he also liked to keep them shuttered, focusing on anything but her.

They walked for awhile longer. He pointed out the various parts of the garden, from the pear trees he kept on the outskirts to the various types of flowers in the other parts. When she mentioned wanting to try her hand at cooking sometime, he showed her to the vegetable garden that had gone wild long ago and mentioned that she may tend to them if she wanted to. She was excited at the prospect, imagining her perfect little vegetable garden. The fact that she knew nothing about tending vegetables or cooking did not deter her one bit. She no doubt could find all the books she needed on the subjects in Rumplestiltskin's extensive library.

Belle didn't know how long they strolled for. The beauty of the area around the castle constantly astounded her. It almost seemed to astound Rumplestiltskin too and she was sure that he rarely, if ever, came out to the grounds to simply enjoy them. He gave her a bit of freedom, the taste of the outdoors, but she thought perhaps she gave him something too, a new appreciation for what was always just _there_.

She retained her grip on his arm nearly the whole time, occasionally releasing him to wander a small path on her own or smell flowers further from the path they were on. She always returned to him though, linking her arm loosely through his when she did.

"This is beautiful, Rumplestiltskin," she said as it seemed they were nearing the completion of their circuit. She started to step away, but he tightened his arm.

"Wait…there's more." She cocked her head slightly and indicated with one hand that he should lead on.

And lead he did. This last locale was a bit further removed from the rest and she found herself excited as they headed up and across some small hills. She didn't know how far his own land extended but it seemed to be much further than the land her father's keep was on. She stopped at the top of one of the small hills and breathed in deeply, releasing him to spin around a couple times.

The spring weather was glorious. The sky was an amazing shade of blue, the clouds white and fluffy. The sun shining through the clouds created patterns of shade on the ground that she enjoyed traipsing through.

"Go ahead and take your shoes off," Rumplestiltskin suddenly said and she ducked her head slightly in embarrassment. "I recall your not wearing any shoes when we first met."

She had forgotten that in the intervening years, instead mostly focusing on the sensations and the nervous excitement of being free for the first time in her life. She looked to him and bit her lower lip, an unconscious gesture of indecision.

"Oh go ahead dear. There's no one here but us."

That cinched it for her. She was alone on a hillside with the Dark One. Her father and her family would not see her. The knights would not see her. Finally, she kicked off her shoes, amused to watch them disappear as she did so.

"They will reappear when you need them again," he said with a shrug. There was that casual use of magic yet again. It was something he simply did without thinking, like breathing for the rest of humanity.

Racing across the field she gloried in the feeling, a reminder of that day all those years ago when she had done much the same. This time it was in bright sunlight and the grass was soft beneath her feet, no branches to reach out and scratch the tender soles.

Rumplestiltskin came up somewhere behind her, walking in his straight path slowly toward her. "This is glorious!" she shouted to him and was amazed to see him smile, a slight tilting up of one side of his mouth. He did not join in her headlong rush down the hill, but picked his way carefully down in the high-heeled boots he still wore.

Come to think of it, she had never seen him in anything but that style of clothing. He did not wear a nightshirt in the tower room so late at night when he went there, alone, to spin. He was always impeccably dressed when he came down in the morning. She wondered what he would look like dressed down. She wondered if she'd ever see such a thing. Already she felt she saw a side of him that no one else had seen, especially not those who went to him for a deal. But even she, for all her months of living with him, had never seen him truly relaxed.

He was like a jungle cat, all tightly coiled energy waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting prey animal. Even at rest, he seemed ready to jump into action. She would watch him seated at the table while taking his morning tea and his hands simply seemed alive. Even when steepled together in complete stillness they looked ready to create the flourishes that accompanied his magic.

She suspected that sort of unleashed energy probably left those he dealt with terribly unnerved. It had during her first days, after all.

It no longer did.

When she reached the bottom of the hill, she waited for him to catch up and they resumed their walk. She didn't ask for her shoes back, though she knew he could conjure them at any point. She stayed closed at his side though she did not reach out for him again.

"Come," he said and stepped off to the side. There was a line of trees there that she hadn't really noticed before with a small path intersecting them. He led her to the path, and walked through, stepping aside as she breached the barrier.

She gasped as she was finally confronted with the view there. The grass beyond the tree line led first to a sandy beach and then to a lake. Crystal clear, it spread out beneath the mountains in the distance, reflecting their peaks in its water. She had never seen anything like it, had never _imagined_ anything like it. It was simply perfect.

He let her go on ahead, let her explore the beach, feeling the sand beneath her feet, dipping her toes in the still-frigid water. She finally returned to him and sat on the grass, patting the ground beside her. He sat awkwardly near, but still without touching her.

She leaned back on her elbows, turned her face to the sun. "I've been exploring the castle these past months. There's a lot there." She smiled at that, turning to look at him. He didn't return the look. She had found things she wanted to question him about, but nothing more so than the room of small clothes and children's toys. All of the toys were rough-hewn, obviously made by someone with a bit of skill but without fancy tools. The clothing was made by the same skilled hand, patched together in parts, threadbare in others. They had obviously been well-worn and patched up time and time again. "In one room I found children's clothes and toys…" She paused and waited to see if he would respond. All she noticed was a slight tightening of his jaw as the words slipped from her mouth. "Were they yours? Or was there a son?"

His shoulders tightened, as did his mouth. He drew his legs up, wrapped his arms around them and rested his chin on his knees. "There was," he said quietly. She had to strain to hear him. "There was a son."

She waited for him to say more, but it seemed he had closed off. "What happened?" She had to prevent herself from reaching out to touch him.

"I lost him." The words were a mere whisper.

"And his mother?"

"I lost her too." And this time the words were less than a whisper. She almost felt more than heard them. There was a sadness there, a deep abiding sadness she had not seen out of him before. He certainly wasn't the gleeful demon who stole away the things people held precious and he wasn't the darkly evil succubus who took children. She knew that much after her time with him. He was prone to mood swings she had not been prepared for, one moment willing to discuss her latest reading and the next glaring at her and walking out of the room without so much as a word. But she hadn't seen this sort of sadness before.

"I'm sorry." She shook her head. She had no child to lose but she couldn't imagine the pain of losing one. She wondered how long ago this was. She had no doubt he was a man, or at least once was. She knew from the books she had read that he had been around for a very long time, centuries even. "How did they die?"

His head shot up and his eyes met hers finally. "My son is not dead."

"But…"

"I lost him…many years ago. We were…separated. He went to a new world. I stayed here. But he is still alive, somewhere. I don't know where or how, but he's alive. And somehow I will get back to him." His hand clenched into a fist and then relaxed again. It was the most open he had been with her, though it seemed that every word was being wrenched out of him, as if he didn't want to say them and yet could not stop himself.

"And his mother…"

He looked away again, the open look in his eyes quickly shuttering. "She is dead. It matters not how."

They fell into silence for a time and Belle tried to absorb the astonishing information she had learned. She hadn't come out here with the intention of asking about the clothing. She had planned to ask sometime, maybe on one of their nights in the tower. Surely he would know she'd find the clothing and ask about it eventually. Surely by now he was aware of her curious nature.

Finally, Rumplestiltskin heaved a sigh and stood, his customary grace allowing him to draw himself upward without so much as a bobble. He turned to look down at her and his gaze seemed curious and irritated all at the same time. Holding out a hand, which Belle grasped without hesitation, he drew her to her feet.

She stepped closer to him as she rose, placing one hand on his shoulder to retain her balance. As soon as she had her balance she reached up with that same hand, gently touching the side of his face and watching, surprised, as his eyes slid shut and he turned his head gently into the touch. "If you need help finding him, please, let me help. I don't know what I could do, but if you need an extra set of eyes or _anything_, please…ask me."

He opened his eyes again and they met hers. Neither moved for a moment and then suddenly the world dissolved and Belle found herself standing alone in her bedroom. She clasped her arms tightly around her chest as she felt a tear roll down her cheek.


	12. Chapter 11

She wanted to _help_. The first thing that hit the wall was a small glass vase he had no need of. It had come with the castle after all, just some relic left over from the people who abandoned it long ago. It made a delightful breaking noise.

_She wanted to help_. He couldn't even begin to understand this woman, this _Belle_. Her own father was willing to trade her to him in a deal. Oh yes he gave her the choice in the end, allowed her to say that she agreed to forever, that she would go with him to his castle, but he also knew she had no real choice. It was go with him or let her people die at the hands of the ogres.

The ones he himself had sent.

He had given her no choice, though he was sure she no doubt still felt she had some choice in the matter.

And now she wanted to _help_. The second thing that hit the wall was one of his teapots. It wasn't his favorite, but it was one he found at least aesthetically pleasing. It crashed against the wall in an explosion of deep red shards.

The teapot was followed by several cups, a plate or two, another vase he didn't particularly like.

How could she help?

Why would she want to help?

What could she possibly have to gain?

He slumped against the wall, shaking. _The prophecy_…He had tried not to think too hard on that since she had come into his life, since they had brought down what he thought was going to be a _thing_ and instead ended up being a _human being_, the one who was fated to _reunite him with his son_.

She didn't even know that, did she? Was she aware of how she was connected to him? That she was supposed to reunite father and son _somehow_. He hadn't yet figured out how she was "more than what she seemed" and yet already she was asking about his son, about his son's mother, asking to help.

He hadn't given her the truth about his wife. She had died, long after he lost her to a pirate, to a life he couldn't give her. And she had died at his own hand, the result of his inability to control the magic when his temper took him. He had gained control over the centuries. The magic no longer controlled _him_ as it had back then, giving action to his inner thoughts before he could even react. He didn't regret her death, not exactly. She had tormented him, had left their son, had left him having to explain where she had gone, had made him _lie_ to the wee boy. He only regretted how it had come about and that _he_ had ultimately been the one to do it.

He didn't know how to explain that to his son. He knew he would have to someday.

And so now he had this woman here, the young woman of the prophecy, and she wanted to _help_.

He was lost, completely and irrevocably lost.

* * *

Belle was alone in her library the afternoon that Rumplestiltskin came for her. After giving her free reign to explore the room some months ago, he had never set foot in it when she was there. He gave a dismissive explanation about magic being the only thing he wished to read about, but she was sure that was not the reality of the situation. The books she pulled off the shelves were well-loved with fingerprints on the leather bindings and the occasional spine broken.

The latter she shook her head over. Books were precious. Breaking the spines was just something one didn't do if they cared about the books. But one thing she had learned about Rumplestiltskin in her time there, he wasn't someone to think of such things when one of those black moods struck him.

So when he came into the library, disturbing her latest study of the long-lost island world of Atlantis, still likely buried beneath the sea somewhere, she was surprised.

"Come," he said and the word was spoken so solemnly, she didn't even consider not obeying. Placing a bookmark between the pages, she set the book down on the table and rose. Rumplestiltskin simply turned and started to walk away. She chose to follow, not questioning his strange actions.

He led her to the other tower room. She had never been in the room during the day, so it was odd to see light filtering in through windows that were in desperate need of cleaning. At night it had a mysterious air, the screams still echoing in her head when she curled up on the little settee that seemed to be reserved for her. During the day, the place looked both chaotic and sad. There was an air there, something intangible that made her eyes water just slightly. The sorcerer had spent a lot of time here and not all of it was happy hours spent creating potions.

"What do you wish of me?"

He turned to face her then and quickly covered up an odd look that flitted across his countenance for a moment. "Do you read other languages, Belle?"

She nodded and gave him a quick list. He seemed satisfied with that. There were, after all, advantages to being locked into a tower for your entire life. "Why does all this matter?"

"You wished to help," he answered simply. "Or were you not serious about that?" He met her eyes and she could feel the challenge within them.

"Help you find your son?"

He flinched slightly at her words. "Well, help me find a _way_ to my son."

"Yes I wish to help. I was serious." _So that is what this is about._

He raised his hand around him. "Then help."

She looked around her and waited for more of an explanation. He was often cryptic, but this was the most he had ever been.

Finally he sighed and looked at her. "My son fell through a portal to another land, a land without magic. Getting there has been…problematic to say the least." His eyes slid away and if Belle were going to attempt to describe the look she'd say it was almost one of embarrassment.

"What have you tried so far?"

He shook his head and waggled one finger at her. "Oh no, it's not going to be that easy. I need a new set of eyes, not ones that have been influenced by my centuries of looking. It's time to hit the books dearie!" He let out that high-pitched giggle she had come to associate with his being uncomfortable and then left her there.

* * *

She had lost track of the weeks somehow, spending most of them holed up in his library, reading books with titles such as _The Ancient Magick of Our Peoples_ and _Transmogrification_. She didn't even know what the latter _was_, but it took her little time to figure out it wasn't what she was looking for.

They needed a way to his son, to this land that had no magic, and nothing else. So she set out to make a catalogue of ways to travel between realms.

Surely he had been through all these books before. If he were not joking about the centuries bit, then he had had more than enough time to read all the books at least twice. A new set of eyes was always nice but she still felt like she was simply treading water.

He stopped in one afternoon while she was skimming through yet another book, a piece of paper and a quill at her side. She had been through countless others, making her way systematically across the library, skipping any book in a language she did not understand and being especially careful with those books with dire warnings about their content.

"Find anything?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "This is nothing but a wild goose chase, isn't it?"

His gleeful smile faded. "I was hoping otherwise, but yes, it likely is." The words were more serious than she (had) expected. She knew finding his way to his son was of utmost importance. "But perhaps you found something?" He gestured for her to take a seat on her settee and she did so, pulling out the sheets of paper she had tucked into the pockets of her dress.

"I found several ways one might cross realms," she began with. She had never imagined doing such a thing when she was younger. Crossing the barrier to the outside of the keep was all the adventure she could dream of. Living in Rumplestiltskin's castle, carrying on her life side by side with the great sorcerer, left her somewhat more aware of the outside world and what was beyond even that.

"Go ahead," he said with a small hand flourish.

"The easiest and most common is via magic bean," she read from her paper.

"Not so," he said and he sadly shook his head. "A bean took him from me. But since then the Giants have destroyed them all. I have been hunting my entire life for another."

Belle shook her head. "I'm…sorry. I knew it must be harder than that. Why would the Giants destroy their beans?" She had read about them before, the Giants who lived up beanstalks that extended far into the sky, rarely coming down from their castle high up in the clouds.

"Humans." And somehow it was all the explanation she needed.

They ran down the rest of her list and he shot down each one in turn. The silver slippers of a land called Oz? Couldn't track them down. The wing feathers of a Pegasus? _They're all dead and gone dearie. The last sail created by them was burned to rubbish long ago_. A dragon orb? No one had seen nor heard of them in centuries. There was doubt they still existed, though he had heard of some who had gone in search of them fairly recently.

"What about mermaids?" She had read, long ago, that mermaids could cross the realms through the sea, that the space between realms was thinner there and easily breached. There had been stories of mermaids playing the role of sirens in many lands, crossing over to tempt sailors to their deaths.

"Treacherous creatures." She was surprised at the slight shudder he gave. "And even if we could talk one into crossing realms for _our_ purposes, they could never take me with them. I still need to breathe, dearie"

She sighed. "So nothing then."

"Indeed." He seemed almost disappointed, as if he thought she would stumble across something in his library that he himself had missed.

"I'm sorry." And she meant it. She had failed. She could only imagine how important this was to him. Her father had done so much to protect her and he had lost her anyway. Sometimes she wondered if he searched for her, if he thought about trying to get her back, if he was unhappy. Rumplestiltskin was unhappy, that much she _did_ know, and she suspected much of that was due to the loss of his son. It explained so much about his mood swings, the darkness inside him.

She wondered where the boy could have gone, what realm he crossed into, how he could have survived for this many years in a land that had no magic. She didn't dare ask _why_ he went to such a land, how he went alone, why his father was still here and still searching for him. She couldn't even fathom how long ago this must have been and she didn't want to ask.

He left her then, with a brisk nod. "I will not be coming down for dinner this evening." And he disappeared, leaving her alone in his magical tower room.

_Such pain. _She didn't even know how to act in the face of such pain. She found herself wanting to follow him, wanting to hold him and comfort him. It was a strange feeling, that.

* * *

He watched the wheel, watched it spin, creaking, around and around. He could feel the straw in hand, he could feel it become gold, but at this point in his long life he didn't even need to look at it to know that the straw was spinning properly, that the gold was spooling into the basket at his feet. He could watch the wheel, let the motion soothe, let him attempt to forget.

He never forgot, really. He was sometimes able to blank his mind out, shut out the world, and simply have an absence of thoughts. But that was becoming more and more rare over time. Now instead, his mind would go to that blank place and find it was not so empty anymore.

Instead there was Belle.

He was treading dangerous territory here, opening up and letting her into some bits of his life. That had not been his intention when he brought her there. He thought to ignore her, let her find her own way, let her lead him to his son as some sort of disinterested third party. An accident. He expected it to all be an accident. That one day she would simply stumble and find the way.

_She is not what she seems_…

The words haunted him, drove him out of his room to the wheel. The nightmare had taken him that night for the first time in a long time. Only this time it had altered. His son was still taken, the vortex opening up and swallowing him. He had still hung back by the tree, still not been able to go, still been the coward he always was.

But this time, a soft hand had reached out for him, touching his shoulder, drawing him away from the cratered ground where his son had disappeared. And when he looked back, followed the hand to arm to shoulder and neck and finally to the face, it had been Belle, a soft smile on her face.

_We will find him_…

He wasn't seated at the wheel long before she showed up, bleary-eyed and dragging the latest book she was reading with her, this time a slim leather-bound one. He was used to her showing up with large tomes about history and science. He knew she read the novels he had in the library, for he had seen ones laying around various places. But she had yet to bring one up to the tower with her.

She ducked her head in carefully this time, not quite walking into the room after the door opened. It was the first time she had shown any lack of being comfortable in his presence in a long while. He hadn't quite realized that. The first few times she had gone to the tower room she had been frightened out of her wits. Then she had been hesitant about invading his space. And then finally she had calmly walked into the room and settled on the settee without any question, any ceremony, without even looking frightened. It had happened so subtly that he hadn't really taken notice of it until she reverted back.

He gave her a look, a small nod. She was welcome. She was always welcome, even if he didn't want to talk that night, his hopes dashed again, his nerves too raw, his mind too confused.

They settled into the silence for a time, the creaking of the wheel and the rustling of her turning the pages of her book the only sounds in the room. It was peaceful. Or would be, if not for the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, the ache behind his eyes that he hadn't felt in a long time.

When he dared to glance up from his wheel, he found her watching him, a worried look in her eyes. He glanced quickly away.

"This is the first night I've heard the screams in over a week." Her voice was quiet, hesitant.

He looked up again, met her eyes and held the gaze. It seemed to be enough invitation for her to get up and approach him. She walked around behind the wheel, the first time she had been there with him, and watched it for a moment. He kept it spinning. He didn't know what else to do, where to put his hands, where to look.

"What do you think they are?" she asked.

"I…" He turned his gaze away from her. What _were_ the screams? He had never heard them, not in all his long years in the castle. Yet she heard them the first night she was there, had heard them many nights since. They hadn't spoken of them since her very first night in the tower room. He had assumed she was hearing things and realized she had a safe spot to go to when she was scared alone in her room. "I don't know. I don't hear them."

"Never?"

"Never." He heard her sigh.

"They're quieter now."

He didn't know how to interpret that. "You hear them right now?"

"No." She placed one hand gently on his shoulder as she spoke. "Earlier. The screams end when I put my hand on the door to this room."

His eyebrows drew together. "Do they now?"

She nodded.

"Do they end on the nights I'm not here?" The door was barred to any who might enter when he was not in the room. On nights he was elsewhere, he could well imagine her coming up to the room, frustrated, finding the door barred to her entrance.

Her head cocked slightly to the side and she was just close enough that her hair brushed against the side of his face, an unwitting caress. "You are always here."

He didn't know what to say and so remained silent. She stayed with him for a time, her hand still on his shoulder, watching as the wheel spun before him, watching the straw alter itself into gold.

And then she finally moved off, back to her settee, where she fell asleep with book in hand once more.

He didn't rise from his wheel, allowing the sound of it to lull him into that place of nothingness he so desperately needed to go to, that sort of dreamlike state in which nothing existed. Not his son. Not Belle. Not even _him_. Where the world was just one big void that swallowed all that he was entirely.

With nary a thought, he sent Belle back to her room and guaranteed her a peaceful, dreamless sleep, something he himself never seemed to get.


	13. Chapter 12

A/N: Thank you again for all of the lovely reviews! And all of the followers! Wow. I hope the remainder of the story will keep you entertained!

* * *

He had asked her once why she had chosen to come with him. There was the obvious answer, of course, that she wanted to save her people. There was much truth to that, for without her sacrifice her duchy would have suffered great losses, perhaps even been wiped out entirely. She would have been the sole remaining occupant of the duchy, stuck in her tower to die when there was no one left to let her out. So she could have told that part of the truth, left it at that. Instead, she told him a different story, the truth that was a little closer to her heart, the truth she would never have told her father or Claudine.

"_There's not many chances for women in this world, especially not for me." Her smile was self-deprecating. Women in general had few chances to prove themselves. Women stuck in towers had none at all. "This was my chance. My chance to be the hero. My chance for adventure." And it _was_ an adventure of sorts if she really took the time to examine how she felt about it all._

"_Adventure is it?" His smile was rather wan. "And is it everything you hoped for?" He waved one hand in the air, indicating the room around them._

_Belle had to think on that one for a moment. Adventure to her had meant going places, seeing things, maybe even finding herself in trouble and having to work her way out of it like the people in her books. Adventure was not supposed to be trying to figure out the strange creature in front of her, trying to discover exactly what it was that drove him, trying to find out what rumors were true, which were false. And yet she was on perhaps the greatest adventure she never could have even begun to imagine. _

_She had smiled at him. "Well, it wasn't exactly what I imagined, but I saved my people. I left my tower. And I'm here. So I would say it's an adventure that is just beginning."_

_He had leaned back in his seat, steepled his hands and watched her._

_The next day he had given her the library, a sort of apology for a lack of any real adventure. If only he had known that _he_ would be her ultimate adventure._

She had not seen him in three days. Ever since she had failed him, had not found anything new for his son, he had disappeared. The screams had come every night, terrible screams, the likes of which she had not heard before, yet she was barred from the tower room. She went there each night, pounded on the door, shouted at it, but the door never opened for her.

She had seen him in black moods before, watched him retreat to the wheel, had heard the breaking of glass when he was in a particularly bad place. He had moments of humor, of glee, but always the darkness took him. This was the worst she had ever seen. He had destroyed items, some precious, some strange, in various rooms. And then he had retreated to the tower room and barred her from it.

Silence had reigned since the last of his temper flared out late the night before.

When he finally came down on the fourth morning after her failure, he seemed calm but hesitant. He halted near the entrance to the room. Belle was seated at the table, as she was every morning, with or without him. She had made a pot of tea for herself and the castle had summoned a simple breakfast of biscuits and jam. She was just about to take a bite when she noticed his hesitating just barely inside the room.

"I see you've finally come down to join me." She stood, took a step toward him. He did not move from his spot. "Come, will you eat? It's been days."

He took a couple steps into the room. "I…um…no, I don't think so." One hand was held rather awkwardly in front of him, thumb and forefinger rubbing together, a gesture of anxiety.

Belle retreated to the table. "Well, I need to eat. So the least you can do is sit with me while I do so."

He nodded and walked with slow steps to the head of the table, sitting gingerly in the chair. Crossing his arms over his chest, he simply watched her. She had taken a few more bites, trying to ignore the rather uncomfortable silence, when he finally spoke.

"I need to go out for a deal today."

He was leaving…again. She was glad of the books he had given her. Without them surely many of her days would have been boring indeed. "I understand."

"No," he said quickly. "I don't think you do. You are coming with me."

He said the words so nonchalantly that Belle wasn't sure she heard him correctly. "Come again?"

"I'm going on a deal, dearie, and I require your company on said deal. Which means you're going with me."

Belle just raised an eyebrow. _Was he serious?_

"You did say you wanted an adventure, did you not?" He waved one hand in the air, a small gesture that mimicked his usual flamboyance. "I'm going to give you one."

Belle took a deep breath. He was right. This was what she had wanted. "When do we leave?"

"When can you be ready?"

She stood, grabbing one of her biscuits and her teacup. "As soon as possible." She finished off her breakfast as she darted back upstairs to get dressed.

* * *

Belle didn't know where they were going, but she assumed if it were some sort of adventurous deal, dressing comfortably was in her best interest. She put on one of her most serviceable dresses and a pair of soft calfskin boots. On her way out the door she grabbed the cloak Rumplestiltskin had given her the last time they went out.

Spring was in full force now in the mountains, but the temperatures still called for wearing something for warmth. Prepared for whatever she might face, she smoothed down her outfit and wished once again for a mirror. In all her explorations of the castle, she had yet to come across even one mirror. She had never questioned it, knowing he must have some reason for lacking such a thing, but it made it hard to do much with her hair and make sure she was presentable. So instead she simply tended to plait her hair or tie it back with a ribbon. It was simple, but there was no one there to see her wearing such styles besides Rumplestiltskin and he didn't seem to mind so far as she could tell. She had rarely worn fancy styles at home anyway. No one cared how the girl in the tower dressed.

When she rushed down the stairs, he was waiting for her, clothed in a warm cloak that engulfed him. With a smile, she approached and stood at his side, ready for adventure in the comfortable flat boots she was wearing. He was several inches taller than her in his heeled boots and for once she felt very tiny next to him.

She never had before and she always found that strange. She was tiny, apparently taking after her mother who barely topped five feet tall. She thought she'd feel downright miniscule next to the powerful sorcerer, but never had, often finding herself almost on eye level with him. He was small even if he seemed much larger with the crackling of the magic running through his system.

He smiled with a strange sort of glee when she stepped into the room and clapped his hands together. "Excellent! Let us go then!"

She followed him out to where a carriage waited, four horses who were snorting and stamping their feet, eager to be off, hooked up and ready to go. He held out one hand and she hesitated for a moment before placing her hand in his. "No magic?" So far she had never known him to travel by other means.

"I thought this might be more fun." He held up the hand not holding hers, indicating she should get in ahead of him and steadied her as she did so.

She smiled as he swung himself up into the seat across from her. He raised one hand in the air and the carriage began to move. Belle gripped the sides of it, trying to find purchase as it began to rock. "I'm sorry. I've never been in such a contraption before." It felt odd to admit it. She had heard about carriages, horses, had imagined what it must be like. The reality was somewhat bumpier than her imagination had told her it would be.

Once she adjusted to the rocking and bouncing of the carriage, she was able to settle into her seat. She found a way to sit that allowed her to sway with the carriage without pitching forward or sideways too much. "Do you want to share where we're going?"

Rumplestiltskin had been looking out the windows of the carriage, watching the world pass by. She suspected that he didn't travel this way very often. Perhaps it was even a novelty or a bit of nostalgia for him.

"How much do you know about magical items, Belle?"

He seemed serious and so she answered in kind. "Not very much, admittedly. I made a small study of magic when I wanted to free myself from the tower…"

"So that's how you did it," he murmured. "I'll have to ask you about the spell you used later. There is an enchanted bow, one that when arrows are fired from it, they never miss their target. There is a man in this forest who owns such a bow and it seems he's willing to trade it away to me. We go to meet him."

"That seems like a very handy tool for hunters."

Rumplestiltskin gave a small giggle. "Oh, my dear, no. This has a much greater use than taking down some great stag." The flamboyant gestures had returned. It seemed getting out of the castle was good for him as well. "This will be traded to an unfortunate princess looking to off a Queen who has been trying to kill her."

"That seems awfully convoluted."

"The future often is," he said with a slight waggle of his finger. "But know this, Snow White _will_ come looking for that bow. And I must have it if I'm to trade for what I need from her."

"And what do you need?" The words escaped Belle's mouth before she could even consider taking them back.

"A piece of her hair."

"That's all? Could you just ask her to give you a bit of it? I mean, if you want hair, you can have some of mine." Sometimes Rumplestiltskin made complete sense. Sometimes she felt like she was talking to someone who spoke a foreign language.

"Really, dearie." He leaned forward, bringing a hand up to gently wrap a strand of her hair around one long finger. Belle found herself leaning toward him, breath held, waiting for what he might do next. He moved ever closer, drawing her in. "And what if I wanted _all_ the hairs on your head?" She jumped back in horror and he released her hair as her movement tugged on it, giggling like a madman.

"You're insane," she whispered and watched as his lips tightened slightly before a wide grin crossed his features. If she didn't know better, she'd think her words might have hurt him.

They were silent for a time, the only sound the horses hooves on the ground and the creak of the carriage wheels as they rolled over the bumpy ground. Belle turned her head away from Rumplestiltskin and watched the world pass her by. She had only been in the forest once, in the dark of night, and then she was far more worried about being caught than about seeing all that much. She was mostly left with vague memories of dark forest and of the strange man she found standing on the hill that night.

She had been intrigued by him then. She found him even more intriguing now. At turns he was angry, brooding, and gallant. She never knew what to expect out of him when he came down for breakfast or when she came to his tower. He was keenly intelligent with a surprising sense of humor that she was beginning to understand. More than once he had remarked that they needed to work on her humor and it seemed that they had, somehow. He was such a fascinating and eccentric man, with so many layers that she was still trying to peel them back to find who he was at the heart of it all.

Someday she'd figure him out.

But until then, she'd enjoy trying to understand him. She always _had_ liked a mystery after all.

Belle was not sure how far they had gone when he suddenly raised one hand up and the carriage came to a halt. She was almost sure there was supposed to be a driver and yet she had seen none. Was he able to command the animals themselves through his magic? She was about to ask him when he threw open the door of the carriage and bounded out.

Turning back to her, he offered her a hand and allowed her to climb out with his support. As soon as she was steady on her feet, he released her and she realized what had caused him to stop the carriage.

A lone man on horseback was up ahead, sitting slumped atop a horse that was walking slowly along the path. He didn't have ahold of the reins and so the horse was merely meandering, continuing on a basic forward path and little else.

Rumplestiltskin went ahead of her and she hung back, remained close to their carriage. There was something off about the man and she wasn't sure what. But whatever it was made her less than comfortable about approaching at Rumplestiltskin's side. Was this the man they were to meet, the one with the bow? She had always suspected that not everyone Rumplestiltskin met for his deals was on the up and up, but this wasn't quite what she had expected.

As Rumplestiltskin approached, he reached out and gripped the horse's reins in his hand. The man teetered somewhat precariously before climbing down off his mount and leaning against the sturdy horse. The animal snorted and stepped sideways and the man lost his balance, colliding heavily with it as he tried to remain upright.

"I'm looking for a man." Rumplestiltskin's voice rang out and Belle felt somewhat relieved that this was indeed _not_ the person they were looking for. "He's in this forest somewhere, well known for his prowess with a bow."

The other man nodded and pulled something out of a pouch at his belt. A flask, Belle noted, as he brought it to his lips and took a quick swig. "I know of who you're looking for." The man wiped the back of his mouth and swung his hand out to point at Rumplestiltskin, stepping closer and towering over the much smaller man. Rumplestiltskin ducked out of the way of the man's flailing hand, missing having his eye poked out by a narrow margin. "But I also know who _you_ are, Rumplestiltskin. And I know your penchant for making deals." He took another swig from his flask and the way he was swaying made Belle worry that he would simply collapse in a drunken heap before he could be of much help. She had little experience with alcohol herself, though Sophie had once smuggled in some awful rot-gut stuff that she had drunk a bit too much of. That one experience had told her all she needed to know of the stuff. She could see this man was on the brink of passing out.

Rumplestiltskin clapped his hands together and let out a little titter. "Ah, excellent. That always makes things so much easier. So tell me what you want."

The man peered bleary-eyed at the sorcerer before shifting his gaze, allowing it to fall on Belle. He stared for a moment before speaking again and Belle felt pinned to the spot by that unsteady gaze. "A night with your wench." Her eyes widened but she steeled herself to show no emotions. She would not let this man get the better of her.

She watched as Rumplestiltskin hesitated, turned toward her as if he didn't even realize she was there. Her eyes met his and for a moment, just one tiny moment, she saw the flash of anger there. And then he was turning back to the other man, suave as ever. "She's not for sale."

"Oh come now," the other man said, putting an arm around Rumplestiltskin in what looked like camaraderie. She saw the way he stiffened beneath the drunken man's touch, though he did not move a muscle as the other man continued speaking. "You can't spare her for an hour?" Rumplestiltskin still did not move. "Twenty minutes?"

Belle could almost feel her eyes cross at that. It was ludicrous, this man requesting her for…_that_…for twenty minutes. She almost wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, if it weren't so very frightening. She held her breath, waiting for his response. She did not have to wait long. Rumplestiltskin leaned back, and every muscle in his body seemed to be taut. She could see the way his shoulders bunched slightly beneath the cloak he was wearing.

He looked coiled, like a panther ready to pounce and attack his prey. The other man seemed entirely oblivious, grinning and leering at her as he was. He took his eyes off Rumplestiltskin, looked away from the most dangerous sorcerer in all the land. A terrible move no doubt for one moment he was standing there looking like he was about to get all the good things in the world and in the next moment his eyes widened and he brought his hands to his throat.

Rumplestiltskin had raised up one hand, his fingers spread out and though she saw no sign of magic, she could _feel_ it, crackling in the air like lightening before a storm. As the other man struggled for breath, Rumplestiltskin stepped away from him and began to speak. "What was that?" He leaned closer, tilted one ear toward the man. "Can't speak? Perhaps you'd like to deal for _air_?" The last was said with a sneer as the man's legs started to buckle beneath him.

Belle couldn't take it. She couldn't watch him choke this man, couldn't watch him die in front of her. He was a terrible human being, that much was obvious, dealing for a chance to have his way with someone he saw as little more than Rumplestiltskin's servant, his _wench_. But he did not deserve to die. "Stop!" she shouted, rushing forward as she did so. Rumplestiltskin made no move to indicate he had even heard her as he drove the other man to his knees.

"Oh yes! Kneel before me, you pathetic worm. You are _worthless_." He was furious, in a complete rage, his body shaking with it. She finally reached him and put a hand on his arm, tugging him back.

"Stop!" she shouted again, her voice a plea as much as it was an expression of her anger and fright. "I will not have you kill this man in defense of me. Please, Rumplestiltskin. You are better than this."

Rumplestiltskin turned his head, his eyes met hers, and there was a moment there, just one small moment, when she was sure he was not going to snap out of it, when she was sure he was going to complete what he started. And then the man dropped to the ground, gasping for air as Rumplestiltskin released him from whatever spell he was using to choke the life out of him. Rumplestiltskin stood, hand still held out before him for a moment, and then just as suddenly as he had released the man from his magical grasp, he had turned to Belle and pulled her into an embrace as she flung herself at him.

She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the anger leave him. He had never reached out to her, never touched her of his own accord. She had initiated touches here and there, a hug when she was excited, her hands on his shoulders when he sat at the wheel, grasped his hand when she needed his attention. But he had never initiated any sort of touch, except the occasional gallant gesture, like helping her out of the carriage.

Now he was wrapped around her, pressed tightly up against her, his face buried in her hair, his hands spread out on her back. She was equally wrapped around him, her arms having come up underneath his, holding tightly to his back, keeping him bent slightly down toward her.

"Are you alright, my Belle?" His voice sounded slightly shaky.

She had no chance to respond however, for the man was starting to crawl back to his feet and was pointing a finger at the two of them. Rumplestiltskin released her as the man spoke. "If I had known she was _your whore_ I never would have asked for her."

"If you wish to continue breathing, you will not speak of her that way." Rumplestiltskin's voice was soft, silky. And she inherently knew somehow that that was so much more dangerous than his shouting and carrying on.

The man grunted and turned on his heels, attempting to grasp his horse's reins and missing on the first attempt. As he grabbed at them again and started to tug the horse away, Rumplestiltskin spoke once more. "I gave you back your _air_, dearie. You did not tell me the information I am seeking."

Belle shuddered. This was not a voice she ever wanted to hear from him again. She disentangled herself from his embrace, stepped back to put some space between them.

"His name is Robin Hood. And aye, I know where to find him." She was most relieved that he simply gave directions to where the man was known to hide out, and then left them, still holding his hand to his tender throat.

* * *

The rest of their trip to make the deal had been relatively uneventful. The man named Robin Hood was courteous and invited them to partake of their meager meal with him and the group of men he called his "Merry Men." It seemed they were good sorts, entirely unlike the man they had encountered before. She had found it hard to believe he was the sheriff of these parts, but many reassured her that the law was often corrupt.

Even Rumplestiltskin agreed with that, though she expected nothing else out of him in that regard. He didn't quite seem like the law-abiding type, more like the type to do whatever he needed to do to get things done, the rules of mere mortals be damned.

She wasn't sure if she was frightened of that aspect of him or pleased with it.

Robin Hood did indeed wish to deal away his precious bow. There were stories told of the man through the nearby realms and most spoke of his amazing ability to never miss his target. Belle had found them quite romantic but the reality was, apparently, quite different from what she had read in her books. She was almost disappointed to find out that his amazing ability was due to magic.

The man was all too eager to rid himself of the bow. It seemed that his ladylove was quite ill and he needed the power to heal her. She was pregnant with his child and without attaining a magical means of healing her, the Lady Marion would die and his child with her. He dealt for a wand that Rumplestiltskin had apparently taken off some fairy. Belle didn't dare ask how he got it from her in the first place, but it was exactly what Robin Hood was looking for.

On their way back to the carriage, Belle found herself smiling and that clearly threw Rumplestiltskin off a bit. He gave her a strange look as she stepped out to precede him back to the carriage.

"What?" she asked.

"You look…chipper." He sounded almost hesitant. "Are you alright? After…everything?"

She nodded. "I'm fine. You saved me."

"Hardly." He scoffed.

She stopped and faced him. "You did. That man…"

"Never would have laid a hand on you. He was no match for me. I somehow think he was probably no match for _you_." He pointed out the latter with a raised eyebrow.

She couldn't help but smile. "In the state he was in, perhaps not." She knew the truth though. The not so good sheriff could have easily overpowered her had she met him alone on the road. He was in a sorry state, that much was for sure, drunk and barely able to walk in a steady line. But he was much larger than she was and it would not have taken much for him to subdue her.

"I promised to keep you safe, Belle." His words were serious, nothing of the trickster present in them. "I meant that."

She nodded, feeling a tear prick at the corner of one eye. "I know." But she knew it was about more than just their deal. His anger had been real. The way his body shook as she held onto him had been real. Somehow, along the line, it had become so much more than just a simple deal.

Belle stepped closer to him and in one quick move, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She gave him one final squeeze and then did not linger, turning and walking away.

It took her a moment to realize that she heard no sound of his footfalls behind her and then turned back toward him. He was still standing in the same place, lips turned up in a small smile, hand hovering somewhere near the cheek she had just kissed.

She shook her head slightly and gave him a brilliant smile. "Aren't you coming?" He nodded, still with that same dumbfounded look on his face, and then she turned away from him to lead the way back to the carriage.


	14. Chapter 13

In the weeks after their little adventure, Rumplestiltskin had been on several deals, sometimes leaving for an afternoon, sometimes disappearing for more than a day. But Belle had not been asked to join him again. She knew the reason why, she _understood_ the reason why, though that didn't stop it from bothering her. The deal hadn't exactly gone poorly. It had been completed and he had gotten what he wanted out of it. But he had come close to killing a man in front of her, something she hoped to never see again for as long as she lived.

She wasn't quite sure, in the days that followed, if he left her behind because he was worried about her safety or because he didn't want her to see what he sometimes had to do while out there in the world. In their insulated world of the castle she could sometimes forget that he was the Dark One, that he was known for doing terrible things. He treated her kindly, even when in the blackest of moods, and when he was in a good mood, he was at turns courteous, amusing, or sincere.

Since the deal he had taken her on, things between them had become more companionable, though still with the occasional bit of awkwardness. They always had tea in the morning, dinner in the evenings. Sometimes he came looking for her to take tea with him in the afternoon. They talked more, often about nothing but sometimes about his upcoming deals or the politics of the region. He always seemed impressed with her knowledge of things outside the tower she had been locked in for most of her life.

Some evenings they played games, though that happened only on the rare occasion. She discovered quickly that Rumplestiltskin was a bit of a sore loser, getting angry if he couldn't best her at whatever game he chose that night. He usually _did_ beat her, to be fair, but once in awhile she managed to pull some coup and defeat him soundly. Those nights he often left in a sulk and Belle would just shake her head. There were times he was very much a child and she was reminded of her angry sulks over losing to her father when she was young.

She was _almost_ getting used to the freedom of being able to wander the castle when he gave her even more freedom. He had never explicitly forbidden her from going outside on her own, but two days after the deal, two days after she had crossed the threshold that kept them apart and kissed his cheek, he had come to her with packets of seeds for the vegetable garden she had mentioned while on their earlier outing.

The week after that was spent weeding and then tilling the area. By the following week, the seeds had all been planted and it was now just a matter of time before she had some lovely fresh vegetables to go with their magically-created dinners.

Her life at the castle was content, made all the more so for the nights of undisturbed sleep she had been having. She couldn't even remember the last time she had been awakened in the middle of the night by the terrifying screams. She slept well most nights, waking occasionally but never to such sounds.

If she really took the time to examine her feelings, and she wasn't so sure she was comfortable doing that, she was happy there with Rumplestiltskin. She had not expected that when she had first arrived.

That night she woke up sometime after two o'clock and opened her eyes to the quiet darkness. There were still no screams, just the light tapping of the tree against her window. It was strange how that had become such a welcome sound over the months that she had been there. It was almost an old friend now, something she would notice if it were suddenly absent.

She lay in bed for a few moments and then sighed. Sleep had been difficult that night, first eluding her entirely and then, after she finally managed to fall asleep, she found herself waking up nearly every hour on the hour.

It had become too frustrating.

She missed her evenings in the tower with Rumplestiltskin. Ever since the screams had stopped she had not left her room to make the long trek up to the tower room. She wondered if he missed her, if he wondered if she would reappear. Tonight seemed like a good time to go visit and after grabbing her wrap and slippers, she set out to do just that.

It was strange traversing the corridors without feeling the need to rush away from the sounds and shadows. The castle had become familiar, a home to her. Without the hysterical noises, there was no real urgency to her steps. Still, she hurried on ahead, eager to spend the remainder of the evening with Rumplestiltskin.

She wondered when that had happened. Her first trips up were simply because she needed to be _with_ someone, because she was afraid of what those screams were, what they meant. Later, the screams still terrified her, but she knew she would come to no harm and so going to the tower room had just felt like something she _did_. But this time, she realized she missed his company.

How did that happen? How did he go from being someone she should fear to someone that she wanted to be close to? Admittedly, she had always been drawn to him, even from that first meeting on the hilltop and again during their deal at her father's keep. She didn't know why that was, though there was that pesky prophecy she tried not to think on very often.

When she arrived at the tower room that night, the door did not swing open in front of her as it had so many other nights before. This night she was able to push the door open herself and was surprised to find the room cold and dark, no sign of the sorcerer anywhere in the room. The wheel in the corner was silent, the candles around it snuffed out. She remembered his asking about the times he _wasn't_ at the tower in the middle of the night. But this was the first time she had arrived and found him missing.

Did he actually sleep through the night sometimes? She had begun to wonder if he ever slept, if perhaps whatever he was, whatever this Dark One was, did not require sleep. She crept away from the room, padding down the stairs on silent feet. Perhaps a cup of tea would do her some good. Rumplestiltskin had a wide variety of tea in his pantry, some that helped wake her up in the morning, but she also knew he had some chamomile that might help her be able to fall back to sleep.

It was just moments after stepping into the Great Room that she saw him. Much like in the tower, he was seated at his wheel. But here in the quiet of the main room, surrounded by various remnants of his deals, he sat in darkness. Only the moonlight filtering in through a nearby window illuminated one part of the room.

He was still, one hand on the wheel but not moving it, the other resting in his lap, not even bothering to touch the straw at his side. His head was bowed and she would have thought him asleep if not for the rigid position of his back. As she watched, the hand on the wheel slowly moved, caressing the wood, setting the wheel to a slow spin.

This particular wheel didn't make the creaking noise of the one in the tower room. It slid silently through the wooden base, creating a slight variation in the light as it moved in its circle through the moonlight. His head lifted slightly and while she couldn't see his eyes, she well imagined him watching the wheel. He always watched it. Every night that she had been in the tower room she had studied him as his eyes had followed the track of the wheel.

The motion generally seemed to soothe him but this night, as he sat at the wheel unobserved, she wasn't so sure it was doing that. The hand resting on his thigh formed into a fist. His body shifted, a slight sigh that was easier to see without the layers of the leather coat that seemed to be his protection against the world.

Here he looked like a man, like any other, but the lines of his body were lines of pain. She often felt there was something deep there inside him, a pain full of brittle edges and glass. There was a sadness there, so much so that even in their lighter moments she could see it just behind his eyes.

Sometimes she ached looking at him.

As she watched him slump once more, she took another step into the room. She was still silent, the room still quiet, but something in her movement must have alerted him to his presence. She wondered often if his senses were heightened as a part of his magic. He seemed to notice so much more than she did, as if he were constantly on alert.

His head shot up and she could see him scanning the dark until his eyes finally fell on her. "Belle." Her name was said so quietly, just a whisper in the darkness.

"I couldn't sleep," she said by way of explanation. He didn't move from the wheel, but neither did he start to turn it again. As she walked closer, he tilted his head slightly to the side, watching as she drew near. From close up, she could see his brow wrinkle slightly.

"Are you alright?" He had honestly been worried about her since the incident with the sheriff in the forest. The man had been a cad but ultimately he had not hurt her, had only spoken words that she found uncomfortable, made a suggestion she found horrifying. But he had not physically harmed her. Rumplestiltskin had made sure of that.

Sometimes she wondered if his worry about her stemmed not out of what _could_ have occurred but what _did_ occur. He didn't seem particularly contrite over his almost killing the sheriff, but there had been something in the way he'd spoken to her since that day that was different than before.

She took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes I'm fine." She tried to smile. "You weren't in your tower."

He was silent for a moment. "No." He gave her an odd look. "You heard the screams again?" And he seemed somewhat surprised at that.

Belle shook her head. "No screams. I haven't heard them in awhile…"

"How long?" He leaned forward into the light from the window and there was a strange sort of intensity in his gaze that even the darkness could not hide.

She hadn't really been paying attention. It was one of those things that was only noticed in the longer term. She was used to going a day or two or even a week without hearing the screams, but this time it had been much longer. Just how long? "I think…not since before we went on the deal."

His eyebrows rose and he retreated back into the shadows.

"What?" She took a step forward, following him into the darkness. When silence was all she received, she spoke again. "Please. Tell me." He turned his head away from her, his back stiffening slightly, hands clasped in his lap.

She knelt at his side, reached up her hand to grasp his. He didn't pull away, though he also didn't shift, didn't grip her hand back. "Please," she whispered. "If I am never to know another person, can't I at least know you?"

He remained still, and she watched his eyes close, a muscle twitch in his jaw. And then finally he spoke, the words quiet in the echoing room. "I dream…many nights…of my son." He didn't turn to look at her and she squeezed his hand. "Sleep eludes me often. I go to the tower."

"And you spin…"

"It helps me forget."

"There is much to forget." Somehow she knew there was. The loss of his son was a huge part of it, but not all. His answering silence was all she needed as proof.

"But you came down here for something else?" he asked.

Belle released his hand, her hand coming down to rest lightly on his knee. "I came looking for tea," she said with a sheepish look.

He gave a small laugh. "And you found an old monster languishing in the darkness."

"You're not a monster," she was quick to respond with. She wondered when she had first started to believe that. The stories she had read of him, second hand accounts though most were, had led her to believe he was. It was why she had dealt with him for her own safety, because if the stories were to be believed, she would not be safe with him otherwise. He had seemed offended that first day, when she suggested her safety be included, as if he felt that there was no need to make sure of such things.

It had surprised her then.

It no longer did.

She did not lie when she said he was not a monster.

"Well, who am I to stand between a woman and her tea?" He gestured with one hand. "Don't let me stop you from getting what you desire."

"What I desire," she murmured, and she wasn't quite sure what that was. She stood then, using his knee as leverage to get herself back to her feet, and then released him entirely. He seemed to breathe deeply then, a strange sort of sigh, a release of tension she didn't even know was there. "Will you join me?" She held out a hand to him.

He did not answer at first, simply staring at her hand, still hidden in the dark by his wheel.

"Neither of us can sleep. It seems the least we could do is share a cup of midnight tea." She smiled at him and was surprised to see hers returned with a tremulous one of his own.

"That's not the worst idea you've had." She was glad to hear a little bit of the teasing note return to his voice.

"I daresay it may be the best. Come then." She offered her hand once more, gratified when he slid his hand into hers and rose from his seat. He didn't need her for balance, not really at least, but still used that leverage for the first few steps toward the kitchen.

He dropped it as they moved off and she felt strangely bereft at losing the contact with him. Belle couldn't say she had ever been someone who craved contact with others. Oh she enjoyed _being_ with others and she had frequently given her father a hug on his way out of the room, but she hadn't ever spent much time thinking about the need for contact. What had been there had been enough.

With Rumplestiltskin, she _thought_ about those things. When he was in his dark moods she wanted to hold him, wanted to run her fingers through his hair and help him feel better. She wanted to be the one to bring him out of those moods, to make him smile again. She never did. She touched him only rarely for even those occasional touches seemed to startle him. She was worried that too much might cause him to pull away.

So far he hadn't. He seemed to welcome those small touches with wide eyes and a small half smile. But he never seemed to get used to them. And he never reached out to her.

He must have reached out to someone once. He had a son, so there must have been a mother, perhaps a wife. Was he a normal man at that time? Or was he as he was now?

Shaking her head, Belle set to making tea. It was something familiar to do, occupied her hands while her mind wandered across topics that were better left unexplored.

"The nights you have the dreams," Belle began with, setting the pot of water into the holder above the fire. "And you go to the tower…"

"Yes?" His voice sounded strained.

"I come there every night?"

He seemed somewhat surprised. "What are you asking?"

"Just that." She dropped the tea leaves into the strainer, waiting for the water to come to a boil.

"Yes. You are always there." He turned away from her and pulled out one of the benches at the small table there. Seating himself, he plucked at the sleeves of his shirt, smoothed down the vest he wore. Belle studied him as he fidgeted. He wasn't wearing the heavy leather coat over the outfit. Without that bit of armor to protect him he looked smaller, more fragile. She knew he could crush her with a flick of his wrist, had seen him do nearly that to the sheriff, but she also knew he _wouldn't_.

And it was about more than just their deal.

"Belle, the nights you hear the screams?"

"Yes?" she asked when he seemed not quite willing to continue the line of questioning.

"You always come to the tower?"

She nodded before realizing he wasn't looking at her. "Yes. It feels…safer…there."

"They scare you? The screams?" His brow furrowed as he looked up at her. Belle walked closer, sliding in on the bench next to him.

"They did at first," she admitted, remembering the terror of that first night. "But then, no. I don't think so. They make me sad."

"Why?"

She had to think about that for a moment. The first night she had been unable to really hear anything in the screams, could discern nothing through her fear. But as they kept happening, she started to realize what she really heard in the screams was anguish, the sort of sadness that overtook everything a person was and left them wailing in pain. "They weren't screams exactly. It sounded like someone was in pain, terrible pain. The likes of which I could not imagine."

He sighed and Belle started to reach out a hand toward him. The kettle chose that moment to let her know the water was boiling and so instead she leapt up and finished making their tea.

"You're still using the chipped cup." The words were somewhat accusatory, yet amused at the same time.

He reached out and snatched the cup from her hands. "I like it. It has character."

"It's broken," she pointed out.

"But it's _mine_," he answered with, holding the cup somewhat protectively against his chest.

"It is that." She poured their tea and sat back down on the bench next to him. "Do you know where these screams are coming from?"

He stiffened at the words and she knew he had been hoping to steer the conversation away from that topic. "I think I do."

Belle waited. If he didn't want to talk about it, he'd leave. It wouldn't be the first time something uncomfortable came up between them and he walked out or disappeared into the mist of his magic. She still remembered his sending her away via magic when she had offered to help find his son.

_His son…_

The dreams were of his son. The dreams sent him to the tower.

"These dreams, the ones about your son?" She scooted a little bit closer to him, put her hand on his leg, a small bit of comfort she could offer him.

"Yes." His voice was tense.

"They're not dreams, are they?" It was all starting to make sense, everything coming together. "They're nightmares." And she knew she was right. Even without feeling his leg tense beneath her hand, even without seeing the muscle twitch in his jaw, she knew she was right.

"Yes."

"The screams then, the anguish…it's yours." He stayed silent and she slipped over a bit further, until her leg came into contact with his. One hand came up without her really thinking about it, and lightly touched his face, coming to tangle in his hair. The wild curls were as soft as she thought they would be and her hand wound into them easily.

He turned to look at her then, the first time he had since the beginning of this conversation. He was close, so close, those otherworldly, almost reptilian eyes boring into hers from mere inches away. He leaned just a fraction of an inch closer to her. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know." The words came out in a whisper and they were the honest truth. She had no idea what she was doing, but she wanted to do it anyway. As she leaned in closer, she pulled him to her. He came easily, no resistance, still that furrow between his eyebrows.

She touched her lips to his. Gently, tentatively. She had never been kissed before and never even attempted to kiss someone. This was the first time she _wanted_ to. He froze and for a moment she was afraid she had done it all wrong, had done some sort of irreparable damage to whatever _this_ was that was forming between them.

And then his lips moved, his hands came up to tangle in her hair. He tilted her head to the side, his mouth opening slightly as his tongue came out to taste her. Belle gasped at the sensation and he took advantage, dipping his tongue into her mouth, tangling it with hers.

She had never felt such a thing, never imagined she _would _feel such a thing. Just as she was wrapping her arms around his neck, clinging close to him, he ripped himself away. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her, not ungently, further away from him.

For a moment he said nothing, his erratic breathing matching her own. He slid away from her, putting a bit of distance between their bodies. "Go back to bed Belle." She flinched at his quiet words.

"Rumplestiltskin…I…" She had no idea what to say. _I'm sorry. I think I love you. I want you to kiss me again…_

"Just _go_." He raised one hand, pointed at the doorway.

Belle glanced down at her half-drunk cup of tea, touched her lips, and then she stood. She took a couple steps toward the door before speaking again. "Please. Don't send me away." And she didn't know if she meant at that moment or if she meant permanently.

He pointed more emphatically at the doorway and with all the dignity she could muster she swept out of the room. She paused, however, at the doorway and looked back at him.

Rumplestiltskin, the great monster of the Dark Castle, was slumped over the table, his head in his hands, a soft broken sound escaping him. She wanted to go back to him, oh how she did. She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him close as the emotions washed over him. But she didn't. Instead, she left as soundlessly as possible, hoping to leave him with some dignity intact.


	15. Chapter 14

A/N: Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews. the favorites and follows! You're all the best!

* * *

Belle hadn't slept well that night, not after what happened between her and Rumplestiltskin. She had crawled into bed, tossed and turned, wished she could go back down and confront him, tell him he was pushing her away for no need.

She loved him.

When exactly had that happened? She had been at the castle for some months now and during that time they had grown ever closer. He had opened up to her, had told her about the son that had gone missing, the nightmares it caused. She could scarcely believe what she had found out the night before. She knew the screams were not really coming _from_ him, not exactly at least, but she knew that he had caused them nonetheless. Perhaps when caught up in the middle of such anguish he could not entirely control the magic.

When Belle came down for breakfast that morning, she saw no signs that Rumplestiltskin had been down before her. Usually he was seated at the table when she arrived, food laid out before him and the tea already brewing. This morning she was a bit late and yet he was nowhere to be found.

_Coward_…

She brewed the tea herself, making it in the usual pot and setting out two teacups, his the chipped one he had taken to using since the day she dropped it. For her breakfast, she found some crusty bread and jam and sat at the table, hoping he would come down to join her.

He never did.

She finished her breakfast with a sigh and allowed the castle to remove it all. Rumplestiltskin's absence meant her plans for the day were somewhat uncertain. She could flit about the castle, hope she saw him in her wanderings, or she could relax in her library and read the day away. But neither of those ideas truly appealed to her. She felt the day was better spent outdoors, where she could work in her gardens and have all the space in the world to explore. She didn't want to feel cooped up today.

It was a glorious day, the sun shining, a few wispy clouds in the sky. Her vegetable garden was just beginning to sprout and so she began there, tending to the plants, watering them with her magically-filling water can. It was strange how such things no longer startled her. She had long experience with at least one form of magic, the fairy magic that had tied her to the tower, but little with the day to day magic Rumplestiltskin used to keep the castle running.

She would be lying if she said she didn't appreciate the fact that she never had to put a log on the fire, never had to clean up the dishes after dinner, never had to dust or sweep. It allowed her time for the things she enjoyed doing, like tending her garden and reading.

And trying to figure out her rather enigmatic companion.

She was kneeling in the dirt, skirt drawn up about her legs, when she heard a rustling in the trees near her. With a smile, she brushed the dirt off her skirts and stood. "Rumple…oh." The man emerging from the brush was not her companion, but instead someone she had not seen before. Disentangling himself from the brush he looked around himself for a moment, his gaze finally falling on her.

"Hello." His voice was friendly, the smile on his bearded face broad. Dressed all in shades of greens and browns he almost blended in with the garden around her.

"Are you lost?"

He gave her a sheepish look. "A little…perhaps?" Running his hands through wavy reddish hair, he looked around him. "I was looking for the Dark Castle."

"Well, it seems you've found it." She waved a hand at the path behind her. "If you follow that path, it will take you straight up to the front entrance." The man leaned sideways slightly and looked at where she indicated.

"I see."

He made no move to head in that direction, standing somewhat awkwardly where he had first appeared. Belle cocked her head to the side. "Is there something I can do for you, Sir…"

"Graham," he said with a slight bow. "I didn't expect there to be a young woman here. You're his…"

"Companion," Belle said, not wishing to explore her relationship with Rumplestiltskin with a stranger. She wasn't even sure _what_ she was to Rumplestiltskin and her revelation that she loved him was just too new to speak of. "I'm Belle. It's a rather long story I'm not ready to get into." She offered him a weak smile.

"I can understand." He returned her smile. "I wouldn't want to live here either."

Belle shook her head. "That's not it at all." And it really wasn't. She missed her father, her friends, Claudine and even the knights who came in to speak to her from time to time, but she had quickly come to enjoy her time at the Dark Castle. "Are you here for a deal?"

Rumplestiltskin had spoken of the occasional truly desperate soul venturing all the way to his castle to deal with him. It hadn't happened since she had arrived, but she knew it was possible. The man in front of her didn't _seem_ desperate though, just a bit worried and confused.

"Yes. I think I am." He leaned toward her. "But I'm not quite ready to face the beast yet."

Belle gave a small laugh. "He's not so beastly as all that, if you just get to know him a bit."

"So you know him well then, this Rumplestiltskin?"

"I do. I've been living here for some time now." She felt a strange pride at that. She had gone to live with the Dark One, the creature of nightmares, the one people frightened their children into behaving with, and found him only a man.

"And you're alive to speak of it." The man shook his head.

Belle took a step back. "He's not what you think he is. The stories…well, they're not quite accurate. He's a man…"

"Who has the darkest powers in all the land." He took another step or two toward her, looked around as if he were afraid the man himself would leap out of the bushes and turn him into a some horrible creature. "Miss, I can help you. I can get you away from here." He reached out a hand toward her.

Belle leapt back. "I don't want…"

"Has he put you under a spell?"

"What? No." She was sure he used magic for many things, but enchanting her to feel like this was not one of them. Judging by his reaction last night, it was entirely unexpected, if not welcome to some degree.

She had _kissed_ him. She still hadn't been able to truly process all that had happened last night.

"Are you sure?" The man cocked his head slightly to the side. "You seem agitated."

Belle picked up the watering can at her side, held it protectively in front of her. "The only thing agitating me currently is _you_. If you will just go on your way and discuss your deal with Rumplestiltskin, I would be very appreciative." She refused to turn her back on this strange man, stepping back and waving him on with one hand.

The man called Graham, if that truly was his name, started to sweep past her, but then stopped. "I didn't come here for him, Miss." His eyes as they looked into hers looked sad, slightly red-rimmed. Belle tried to back up, but the man leapt forward, gripping her wrist in a firm grasp. "I came here for you." And then he clasped a bracelet on her wrist, the cold metal biting into it unexpectedly.

Belle gasped.

And then the world dissolved around her.

The last thing she remembered seeing before everything faded was the look of horror on Rumplestiltskin's face as he materialized directly in front of her. The raised hand of his own magic was too late.

She was gone.

* * *

He had been watching her from the tower room, just a small speck of blue and white with long brown hair, as she flitted around the garden.

He didn't dare come down. Not that day. Belle had been tired, overwrought, she knew not what she did. He thought to spare her the necessary unpleasantness an encounter between them today would create. Because she surely did not feel as she seemed to indicate she did last night.

Because lovely young maidens did not fall in love with lonely old monsters.

And so he had been watching as she was startled by the young man who stepped out of the bushes. He went on high alert then, but it wasn't entirely unusual for someone to come onto his grounds in search of a deal. From his vantage point he could not hear the words spoken and while he could have listened in, he chose to give her some privacy. It was the least she deserved after everything.

When he noticed Belle's body language changing, saw her step back from the young man, he started to worry. Surely someone looking for _him_ would not have more than a passing conversation with the young woman he found on his property.

Before he could even think about what he was doing, he had appeared in the garden, directly behind the young man. He raised a hand. He would turn him into a snail, ask questions later. It was sometimes easier that way. If it turned out that he was harmless, the worst he would have on his hands was a disgruntled young man with a craving for algae and an angry Belle. He could handle that.

As he materialized fully, the young man rushed forward and clapped something on Belle's wrist. And before he could react, before his magic could counteract it, they were gone, dissolving into the air.

"Belle!" He shouted her name once, twice, before he set fire to the bushes with a snarl.

* * *

"Where are you taking me?" The man, Graham, who had come to her in Rumplestiltskin's gardens was dragging her through a long, dark corridor. She was sure it was another castle, not the Dark Castle, but yet another monstrously large one. The windows were situated high above her, letting in only a small amount of light. Torches in sconces lined the walls, casting strange shadows.

The man was silent, only giving her a grim look every time she spoke up or fought him. So far she had kicked at him, gotten in one good punch to his gut that barely seemed to affect him, and bitten his hand, managing to escape for only a few seconds before he captured her again.

"You cannot do this. He will come for me…"

"I'm going to take you into a room. I suggest you stumble when I push you." His words were whispered, but urgent.

"What?" The door opened to a room at the end of the long corridor and as they entered, the man gave her a light push to the back. Belle stumbled forward. _Make a good show of it. _

"Well, well, well." Belle looked up to see the woman who spoke. She turned away from the other person she was talking to, a dark man dressed like those from the book she once read on Agrabah, and turned to her. She immediately felt pinned to the spot by her arresting gaze. Her black hair was pulled back into a severe hairstyle, leaving her dark eyes lined in even darker kohl as the most prominent feature on her face. "So this is the little girl who captured the monster's heart."

Belle remained silent and the woman raised one perfectly plucked brow. "What's your name girl?"

She refused to answer.

"Belle," Graham said. "She told me her name was Belle." For a brief second his eyes met hers and then slid away. Belle's eyes narrowed. There was something not quite right about him.

"Belle? Sir Maurice's daughter?" The woman took a step closer.

Belle stood her ground, drawing herself up to her full height, as unimpressive as it might be. The woman towered over her, the high-heeled shoes she was wearing giving her even more of an advantage.

"Locked away in a tower," the woman continued with, her voice dripping with what Belle knew was supposed to be sincerity. It was sadly lacking. "The fairies couldn't protect you anymore, could they? Taken away by the Dark One." Her overly red lips turned down into a pout. "Well, we've saved you from that fate haven't we now?"

The guards at the woman's side nodded and smiled.

"Saved me?" Belle finally said, stepping further away from the man who was still hovering far too close by. "By kidnapping me from my home? I hardly consider that to be saving."

"Your _home_, is it?" the woman asked. "So you were close to the monster."

Belle kept hold of her emotions, tramped down on the words she wanted to say. _He's not a monster_. He wasn't. He had proven that time and time again, with warm slippers, with midnight conversations, with silly sulking over games gone awry. At his core he was a man, not an ordinary one, but would an ordinary man draw her interest really? Her father had often lamented that locking her away in the tower had made her _odd_. She supposed it had at that.

The woman glanced around the room at the soldiers and the man who had captured her. "Leave us."

"Yes my Queen," the head of the soldiers said and bowed. They all made a hasty retreat, leaving her alone with the woman, the _Queen_, apparently. Rumplestiltskin had mentioned a Queen before in one of their discussions, an impetuous woman who sought to destroy a young princess named Snow White and would do anything in her power to make that happen.

"So, my dear." She waved a hand at the nearby table and indicated that Belle should sit.

Belle remained standing.

"You're a difficult one, aren't you? Come, dear, have a spot of tea with me." She waved a hand and a teapot, accompanied by two cups, appeared. Steam was already coming out of the pot.

"Rumplestiltskin told me magic makes a lousy cup of tea." And she smiled at the memory.

The Queen laughed. "He always was a fussy one. It's perfectly fine dear." She took a sip of the tea.

Belle finally decided to sit and grasped her cup, taking a small sip. She tried not to make a face. It appeared Rumplestiltskin was right. Fussy or not, this Queen's magical tea could not hold a candle to what she had to drink at the Dark Castle.

"See, just fine. Now tell me, my dear. Has he ever talked to you about a dark curse?"

Belle blinked. "He doesn't discuss his magic with me."

"Not at all? Surely he must let something slip from time to time." The Queen crossed her fingers in front of her on the table and leaned slightly toward Belle.

Belle remembered hunting through the library for portals, for means to get to another land, the one without magic that his son had somehow been transported to. She remembered his flourishes and his pride in the simple things that magic could do for him. She remembered his refusal to teach her basic magical charms and his adamant refusal to discuss his hatred of the fairies with her. "No. He's very careful. I know nothing of any curse. Why would he need a curse?"

"_He_ doesn't need a curse," she hissed at her, a bit of fire behind her eyes. "_I_ need it. And he is its creator. I want to know where it is."

"Where it is? Why would I know such a thing?"

"He has put it somewhere for safekeeping. From _me_. You _lived_ with him my dear. Surely you know much about the Dark Castle that even I do not know."

Belle probably did. The Queen was likely right about that. But this curse? It wasn't something he had ever mentioned. She knew there were dark parts to him, things he did not tell her, did not show her. He hid away in his tower room during the day doing something more often than not and she had not dared ask him about the work he did there. He had let her in some, but she was frankly a bit scared of being let in _too far_.

The Queen watched her for a moment. "You're more difficult than I expected," she mused. "I thought you'd be _so happy_ to have been rescued you'd tell me anything. It appears I was quite wrong." She stood and turned away from Belle. "Guards!" Her strident voice easily carried beyond the room.

The door flew open and four of the guards strode in, immediately on the alert. "Take her to the tower," the Queen commanded and before Belle could even attempt to move, two of the guards were at her side, hands gripping her arms painfully.

Walking over to Belle, the Queen leaned over her. Belle met her eyes without flinching. "She should be used to towers." And then she turned and strode out of the room.

The guards dragged Belle out. She didn't give them the satisfaction of fighting or screaming. She'd get out. Rumplestiltskin would come for her. She had to believe that.

* * *

Belle wasn't sure how long she had been locked in the tower. Without clock or sun or anything to tell the passage of time she knew nothing more than it had been longer than a week. The tower room was bare, just a small hard cot in one corner, a chamber pot in the other. She spent most of the time curled up uncomfortably on the cot, using her hands for a pillow.

She had called for Rumplestiltskin almost as soon as the door closed on her. Stories said he could hear his name being called, that he would come to make deals with the desperate. Some said that his name had to be said three times, some said that whispering it once while crossing yourself was enough. She tried everything she could think of and still there was no sign of the dark sorcerer.

And so instead she curled up, eyes dry, refusing to cry. It seemed that mere moments ago she was in the garden, content with her lot in life, knowing she would go in later and see the man she had come to love. Now she was here. And he seemed to have abandoned her.

She had been so sure, so _very_ sure, that at least some of her feelings were returned. The kiss had been a shared kiss, of that she was certain. He was stunned at first, but he responded, he wrapped himself around her at least briefly, until he put a stop to it all. He called himself a monster and yet sent her to her room alone and then hid from her. A monster would do what he wanted instead of walking away.

No, he was no monster, despite what the Queen may think. Belle knew nothing about this curse that she spoke of, though she could well imagine Rumplestiltskin having his hand in something like that. He rarely spoke of his magic with her, except for the minor spells he used. She had never seen the true extent of his magic. She wasn't sure she wanted to.

It was some time later when Graham unlocked the cell door and slipped in. "You," Belle spat at him. He had _seemed_ friendly and yet he had tricked her. If her mind hadn't been in such a turmoil over the kiss from the night before she surely would have noticed. She was usually rather good at reading people.

He offered her a tray of food and Belle simply gave it a look. She didn't trust him. She didn't trust the food he brought. He set it down on the hard pallet she was to call a bed. "You really should answer her questions."

"Really? And why is that?"

"Don't you see? She'll let you out of here if you tell her what she needs to know." He swept a hand around the tower. "Or do you really want to spend the rest of your life locked up here?"

Belle shuddered. "I was locked away in a tower for most of my life. It's not so different." It was a lie and she knew it, but she would not allow him to see her fall prey to her fright.

"Oh I can guarantee it's different. Belle, she will _torture_ you. And trust me, she has all sorts of methods up the sleeves of those tight dresses." She saw the look that crossed his face and knew. She just _knew_ he had too much experience with that.

"Does she torture you? Is that why you do her bidding?" She stepped forward and laid a compassionate hand on his forearm.

"She took my heart." His words were quiet, but Belle felt them all the way to the bottom of her own stuttering heart.

"She what?"

"You heard me. She took my heart. She has the ability to reach into a person's chest and rip their heart right out. It doesn't kill them, unless she crushes the heart. But it leaves them under her control. She's done it before. She's done it to so many." He sighed, clasped a hand to his empty chest.

"And you think she'll do that to me." It was a statement, not a question. She started to see the possibilities in the plan. She could take her heart and send her back to Rumplestiltskin, control her every move, every word. He would not expect it.

"I have no doubt of it Belle. Defy her long enough and she _will_ do to you what she did to me." He tapped the food tray once, a sort of reminder to eat. And then he was gone from the room, sweeping out and leaving all in silence.

Belle sat down and wrapped her arms around herself. She would not cry, but she could, for that moment, lose herself in a bit of pity for her situation. Tomorrow she would face the Queen again. Tomorrow she would begin to figure out how to get out of this mess with her heart intact.


	16. Chapter 15

When he saw her disappear from his gardens, he was so very sure that she had chosen to go. He expected as much, knew it would happen eventually, suspected that the kiss they had shared late in the night would drive her away. He had promised her safety and had given her something else entirely. He had somehow seduced her mind, tainted her with his darkness. Belle was pure at heart and he had corrupted her. It took no more than simply _being_ with him for it to happen, for he had not gone out of his way to twist her up, to make her see things his way.

He had drawn her in without realizing he was doing it.

He had _wanted_ her to come to him, all those nights in the tower. It was _his_ nightmares that had reached out to her, but he had no illusions that it was he himself that had created the screams that drew her to the tower he occupied. Some part of his subconscious, some part of the strange connection they shared had drawn her out of her room all those nights and brought her to him.

And he had lost her, as he always knew he would.

He still had no idea how she would lead him to his son, even after all this time. The prophecy had been certain of only that one fact. In all his years of attempting to see his future, he never could find out the details of _how_. The future was a puzzle, with pieces scattered to the four winds, never quite making sense until the moment they happened. He was able to connect some of the pieces of the puzzle, but never all of them. The picture remained incomplete until the moment the event occurred. Only then could he see how it all fit together.

He had to find her. He tried to pretend it was just about his son. He knew it was not. And he tried to not think of what exactly the real reason he had to find her was.

The first place he looked for her was the place he had stolen her from. Rumplestiltskin returned to the keep where Belle had spent her entire life locked in a tower he had kept his eyes on for years. Invisibly, he walked the halls, listening in on conversations. Their duchy was prospering and he knew Belle would be happy with that.

He slipped into the tower room she had once been kept in and was surprised to see that nothing had changed there. The bed had not been slept in and the place was covered with dust, but he could well imagine that it had been left exactly as it had been the last time Belle lived there. He wondered sometimes if her father came to the room just to sit, to remember, something he himself had done countless times after he had lost his son.

There was a book still open on the bed. The bookshelves were stuffed full of ones that were no doubt beloved, read many times by a young woman with no hope of having the adventures she read about between their pages. With nary a thought, he sent them all to her room back at his castle. She would come back. She had to. He wouldn't accept any other alternatives. It was simply unthinkable in every conceivable way.

He finished his circuit of the keep quickly, checking in on Belle's father only to find that while the duchy prospered, the man in charge of it all looked like a ghost of himself. Haggard, with dark circles beneath his eyes and deep lines on his face, it was obvious he had not prospered with the disappearance of his only daughter.

She was not there.

He knew the moment he laid eyes on the man that she had not returned to him.

He contemplated appearing, telling her father that she was treated well, but how could he tell the man that she had been taken from his castle grounds, that he had somehow lost her?

He had promised to keep her safe.

He had failed.

* * *

Most of the following week was spent following leads, trying to track down his erstwhile ward. He had never been quite so confounded in his entire life. He had sent out magical feelers and could find absolutely no sign of her anywhere. It was as if she had been taken to another world or to some pocket of their reality that he could not penetrate.

Evenings were spent alone in his tower room, the wheel spinning, the settee empty. The book from her last night there was still lying near the pillow she had rested her head on all those nights. The blanket was crumpled and half on the floor. It was like she had just left and yet it had been forever since she had been there.

More nights than he cared to think on, he curled up on the settee, his head buried in the pillow that still smelled of her, wrapped in the blanket that she had loved so much. He had been alone for many years, hundreds of them even, living in his castle with no company except the occasional person looking to make a deal. How had a handful of months made her such an integral part of his life?

This particular day he was standing near his spinning wheel in the Great Room where once a young woman knelt at his side, held his hand, and pulled him away from dark thoughts with tea. The wheel spun slowly, though no straw was threaded through it. So slowly, that it made almost no noise.

He didn't look up as the doors to the room flew open of their own accord. He didn't need to. It wasn't her. Whoever had entered was not important. Staring at the wheel, he watched its mesmerizing movement, knowing that forgetting was impossible this time.

"Flimsy locks." He cringed slightly at the voice. "I'm here to discuss a deal."

He looked up to see Regina, self-declared Queen, standing on the opposite side of his table, hands on her hips. "I'm not dealing today."

His former apprentice raised an eyebrow and coolly regarded him. "You'll want to deal with me."

"No, _dearie_, I don't think I will." He flicked his fingers at her. "Now if you don't mind I have things I need to take care of."

"Really Rumple? Things like standing aimlessly in front of your wheel? What _do_ you do with your time here anyway?" She turned away from him and picked up one of the teacups laid out on the tray.

With a snarl he rushed forward and grabbed her wrist. She tried to back up, tried to disentangle herself from him. He could see the fright in her eyes as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist in a crushing grip. "What are you doing?" Her words came out on a gasp.

He yanked the cup out of her hand, pulled it close to his chest, turned away from her. Belle's cup…she had taken Belle's cup, put her grimy hands on its surface. He ran a finger over the jagged chip before he turned back to her.

"So it _is_ true." She was baiting him. He knew it. And yet he couldn't stop himself from responding. He never could, just as Regina never could stop herself from rising to _his_ bait. They brought the worst out in each other, just as her mother and he once had. It was a family he was closely tied to, though not out of want. Out of _need_. He had _needed_ Regina, once long ago, to cast the curse to bring him to his son. But then he found Belle. And the prophecy said she would reunite him with his son. And he no longer needed his former apprentice.

Regina had been barred from his castle all these months. Oh, he had heard her calling for him, demanding he answer her, wanting to learn more from him. All of those calls had gone unanswered. Only in his grief and confusion, only in his need to focus all his energies on finding Belle, had he dropped those protections from his castle and accidentally allowed his former apprentice in.

"_What_ is true?" He narrowed his eyes at her, set the cup on the table well out of her reach, and stalked closer to her.

"Well, I heard things. Rumors you see. At least I thought they were." She poured tea into the other cup. "You're not going to steal this one too are you?" When he didn't reply, she shrugged, and put a few teaspoons of sugar in, stirring it before bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. "Your tea is always so much better than mine."

"I don't make it by magic dearie. All magic comes with a price, even simple magic. I prefer not to waste it on _tea_." He sneered the last words at her. Regina had always been impetuous and lazy. If she could conjure it through magic, she would, no matter who ended up paying the price. He had told her that often _she_ would, even for minor things. The grey hairs that she had plucked out, the exhaustion and headaches that sometimes plagued her. They were all caused by her use of magic for ridiculous things that she could just do herself. "Now _what_ rumors?"

She smiled at him, the smile of a lioness who had trapped her prey and was about to go in for the kill. "That you had brought a girl here, pretty young thing. It seems you must have done something truly horrible for she left in the company of a handsome young man, apparently desperate to escape the monster who held her capt…"

He was on her with a snarl, hand wrapped around her throat, the last word cut off before she could finish uttering it. "I did no such thing."

"Really Rumple?" Her words came out sounding hoarse, forced out of a throat that was closing in his grip. "Where is she then?"

He released her suddenly and turned away. Where was she indeed?

"So about that deal?"

"I told you. I'm not dealing." Regina never could take no for an answer. She would keep pushing and pushing until he caved, just to rid his castle of her presence.

"Oh you want this one." She smirked and there was a moment where he felt a knot in the pit of his stomach. "I know all about that tragedy."

He paused. "What tragedy?"

Regina laughed. "The deal, dear."

"What is it you want?" The words were pulled from him. He didn't want to deal. He didn't want to give her anything she wanted.

"The curse, of course. Where is it?" She seemed almost nonchalant as she asked, but he knew she was so very eager to find out this information.

"It doesn't matter. You'll never get it back." He had hidden it and hidden it well. It would take much for his former apprentice to retrieve it.

"Do you want my information or not?" she said on a pout.

"It's with a very _old_ friend of yours." He smiled as he said it. "I gave it to Maleficent for safe-keeping." The dragon lady would guard it as she did all her treasures. She was not the most trustworthy of creatures, none who practiced the dark art _were_ after all, himself included of course, but he also knew she did not want the curse cast. She had _plans_ for a young woman named Aurora that did not involve their being thrust into a new land.

For that was what the curse did. It would take them to a land, one without magic, the land the portal had taken his son to. Regina didn't know this of course. She only thought that the curse was intended to take them someplace where she could rule as undisputed Queen of the land, where no one but _her_ would have any sort of happy ending. In her hands, the curse would take some of those elements, some part of herself, her own hopes and dreams and hatred and anger, and twist it up within its structure. She had no hope of ever truly understanding the form the curse would take, but that mattered little to her. As long as she could destroy Snow White's happiness, nothing else mattered.

"And how am I supposed to get it from her?" Regina sounded exasperated, exactly how he liked her.

He waggled a finger at her. "That was not part of the deal, dearie." He saw the pout start on her lips. "Now tell me what I want to know."

The pout turned to a sly smile. "Well, your _girl_, Belle was her name I believe?" The knot in his stomach tightened. "Her father sent men to retrieve her, to bring her home. The man who took her was sent by him…"

"It involved magic…"

"Oh I know. _I_ provided the magic." And the smile turned almost gleeful. "He wanted her back, of course, wanted to protect his only daughter. I mean, who _would_ want their child going with someone like you?" She pursed her lips.

"I was just there. He did not have his daughter."

She laughed then, a harsh noise that was not entirely one of amusement. It was dark, brittle, like the accidental scratching of a knife on a china plate. "You really must stop interrupting me Rumple and let me finish my little story. He put your little companion back in her tower, just where she always was."

He wanted to interrupt her, tell her that he would have known if she was there, that his magic would find her, but instead just waved an impatient hand at her. She couldn't know.

"I helped hide her from you. She railed against her fate. Of course she did. Her father was sure she was _tainted_, that the beast had somehow twisted her mind. She called for you, begged you to come. Her father would have none of it. He sent in the Clerics."

He could feel his face lose color at the thought of that and was thankful that his cursed complexion hid much of those sorts of changes. The Clerics in Belle's area of the world were a fanatical religious order. Anyone who stepped out of line was subjected to their cleansings, cleansings that often ended with their deaths at the hands of the Clerics, or were so brutal that the person never quite recovered their faculties. He had heard stories of people left to rot in mental asylums after their experiences with the Clerics.

"Oh yes, I see you know of them," Regina continued on with. "They did their thing, cleansing her soul with scourges and flaying." He felt a muscle in his jaw tighten. "After awhile, she couldn't take it anymore and leapt from the tower." She shook her head in mock sympathy. "Such a tragic fate for a beautiful young woman."

He backed up. There was no truth here. There could _not_ be truth. He wasn't able to find her, his magic unable to locate her despite the spells he had cast on objects she had worn, had touched, had loved. Those objects were all over his castle, but none had led him to her. A few had started to move, but quickly fell to the ground, inert. But still…not Belle. Belle was strong, resilient. She had gone to live with a monster she knew nothing about and had come to call his castle her home. She wouldn't give up. Not like that. "You're lying."

One of her eyebrows rose. "Am I?"

It was a challenge and he met it immediately, but he knew what the results would be. He _could not _find her with his magic. He had tried so many times in the past week. Scrying spells, divination using various things she had used and worn, spells that attempted to show him the path she had taken. All had done nothing, shown him nothing, gotten him nowhere. It was as if she had simply disappeared into the ether.

Or died.

"We're done here." He stepped back from Regina, turned away from her. He heard his former apprentice set the teacup on the table and walk away. The doors slid open before her just as he turned back to her. "Oh Regina?" She looked back at him over her shoulder. "When I find out the truth….and trust me, I _will_ find out the truth…if you had anything to do with her death, you _will_ pay."

Then she was gone.

And he was left alone, always alone, the chipped cup that he had come to think of as Belle's, clutched to his chest. He felt his whole body slump as soon as his former apprentice exited the room, the doors sliding shut behind her with a small thud.

_Dead_. But that could not be so. The prophecy. It stated that she would lead him to his son. _It didn't say how, perhaps her death is the catalyst_.

"No." He didn't realize he had spoken the word aloud until he heard it echo back at him in the large room.

It was not possible.

He would not accept her word.

_It is all you deserve, you wretched creature_.

And he knew that to be true. Without Belle he was nothing. Without his son he was less than nothing. Without one he couldn't get to the other.

It was over.

He slumped down in the chair by the fire, the chipped cup still in his hand, held so tight he wasn't sure how he managed to not break it. With a small flourish of his other hand, he conjured up an ancient shawl, the last thing he had ever made for his son.

And then he curled into himself, eyes dry as they always were, the hitch in his breath the only clue to the turmoil of emotions running deep within him.


	17. Chapter 16

Belle had lost track of how long she was locked in the Queen's tower. This wasn't like being in the tower as she grew up, where people came to talk to her, brought her books, discussed things about the world around them with her. Here she had nothing but a small cot, a pillow she had to convince one of the soldiers to bring her, and a pair of shackles.

At first the Queen, whose name she learned was Regina, had come to her every day. The questions she asked her were always the same. _What did Rumplestiltskin tell you about the curse? What is his weakness? How is the curse cast?_

The same questions, every single day. Sometimes she brought tea, cakes, tried to talk to her as if they were equals, as if Belle weren't her prisoner. Sometimes she shackled her to the wall and found ways to magically torment her, things that left no marks on her skin but left her devoid of breath or writhing in pain. Only once did she slap her hard across the face, hard enough to draw blood.

Belle's answers were always the same. _Nothing. I know nothing of this curse. His weaknesses are his own business. You will not get me to speak of him_.

The men she sent to torture her called her "demon's whore," threatened to show her how a "real man" did it, but never touched her. She didn't know if the Queen had told them not to or if they were afraid of Rumplestiltskin's retribution if he found out what they had done. She didn't care, really. So long as they kept their hands off her, it did not matter _why_.

The day she tried to escape, the day she had kicked one soldier in his most sensitive place and shoved the other hard into the wall before they could even react, was the day the shackles came out. From then on she not only was forced to live in a small tower with nothing to do and no one to talk to but those who tormented her, she was shackled to the wall as a precaution.

She was declared dangerous. The guards gave her a wide berth after that and Regina threatened to shackle her legs as well if she tried kicking any of them again. She seemed somewhat impressed that she had gotten as far as she had, actually leaving the tower room and making her way down the stairs and through a corridor before being caught. But Regina wasn't about to let her prize go. Belle was sure she would keep trying to find a way to break her spirit or kill her in the process.

For a time Belle tried to keep track of the days on the wall, scratching marks into it with the shackles, estimating how many days she had been there before they had appeared. After awhile that seemed pointless. The marks were taking up too much room and each time Regina came in to see her, she counted them, scoffed, and told her that her "lover" would never come for her.

Belle had been so sure he would have, that he felt something for her. Regina made sure to crush that hope. The taunts started with how he must not really love her. Belle remained steadfast. Eventually it led to Regina sharing a bit of what Belle knew no doubt was the truth. Rumplestiltskin would never be coming for her, thought her likely dead at this point, and if he believed that because Regina told him that, well, then that was too bad, wasn't it? And the glowing runes on the floor of the tower hid her from him so completely that he didn't even know there was something there in the tower being hidden from him. This was not like the fairy magic of her childhood. Regina had learned from _him_ and so knew all his tricks around such things. She was able to defeat them at every turn.

Rumplestiltskin would not be coming for her.

He had no reason to.

She often wondered what he was thinking, what Regina had told him about her disappearance. She knew she would never tell him that _she_ had a hand in it. Belle suspected that Rumplestiltskin was left to believe she had left of her own accord.

Belle asked many days what Regina had told him, what he knew of her supposed death, but the woman just scoffed. _You'll just have to keep wondering, dear. When you tell me what I want to know, I'll tell you what _you_ want to know._

Still, Belle continued to refuse. And eventually she would go days without seeing the Queen. Her only company on those days were the guards and Graham, who brought her meals and would only stay for a moment to chat before disappearing again with a sad look about his eyes. He was as trapped as she, just in a different way. He could come and go, could leave the castle, but he always would have to return. The Queen could call him at any time, take advantage of him at any time. And so he never went far.

The Queen, in a fit of pique, had assigned Belle's care to the man. And so if he disappeared, she would not be fed. It tied him even more strongly to the castle. He was not the type to allow her to go hungry. The Queen may have had his heart, but it was taken with duress. Belle knew he would do almost anything to get it back, that it had been taken due to his nobility. Now he was as much a pawn as she was.

Eventually Regina stopped coming to see her entirely, realizing she was either not going to give away any information or she _had_ no information to give. The truth lay somewhere in the middle. Rumplestiltskin told her some things, but she knew there was much he guarded from even her.

Once she was left alone, Belle was torn between relief, for she no longer had to endure the Queen's tortures, and boredom, for she spent most of her days in complete isolation.

So the day a man in a hooded cape came rushing into the room may have been the most exciting day she had had in a long time. It wasn't Graham, the man she now knew was a huntsman, a mercenary hired to kill Snow White and whose heart had stopped him before completing the task. It wasn't one of the guards who let Graham in when he delivered her food each day and who sometimes laughed at her, spit on her. They didn't come in cloaked. This person had something to hide and that alone was intriguing.

Belle sat up, coming to attention almost as soon as he came through the door. As he approached, keys jangling at his side, she scooted back just a bit on the cot, the only comfort Regina had given her. The man pulled his hood off and squatted in front of her, sorting through the keys. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, lilting, the accent not entirely dissimilar to her Rumplestiltskin's. "You must be Belle." He was handsome, this one, tall, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. As he looked up at her, one eyebrow tilted up somewhat roguishly. The cloak he was wearing parted slightly to reveal something in his other hand, something sharp and metallic. And then she knew who he was, what he was there for.

She took a deep breath. "The Queen sent you didn't she? She wants you to kill me."

The man smiled at her, a bright crooked smile that might have otherwise been charming. "Oh no, love. I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to rescue you."

Belle's eyes widened, glancing quickly around the room. "If this is another of the Queen's tortures…"

He shook his head. "It's not, love. But we need to get out of here quickly." He pulled the shackles off of her and offered her his right hand to pull her to her feet. She released his hand almost as soon as she was up, not liking the cold, clammy feel of it.

Rubbing her hands over the raw red marks left on her wrists by the shackles, she narrowed her eyes. "Why would you do this?"

"We really need to get out of here, love." He reached out to grasp her arm and she jumped back slightly.

"No. I'm not going anywhere with you. Why are you rescuing me? Who sent you?" She couldn't imagine for a moment that it was Rumplestiltskin. The Queen had made sure, over and over, to tell her that her love wasn't coming for her, that he thought she was dead, that he was moving on with his life.

She didn't believe the latter. _Couldn't_ believe the latter. He was not a man who _moved on_ with his life. He had spent centuries looking for his son. He did not move on easily and he did not give up without good reason.

She had no doubt he believed she was dead and so this man, whoever he might be, was not sent by Rumplestiltskin.

The man sighed. "It's your father, love…"

"Papa sent you?" She couldn't even imagine how her father knew she was there.

"No, not exactly. Your duchy is being attacked by the same demon who stole you away."

"Rumplestiltskin?" He had promised her family protection, that the ogres would be gone. He had not gone back on his word, _would not_ go back on it, unless he had some reason to believe she had left of her own accord. Even then, she wasn't sure he would do such a thing.

The man nodded. "The Dark One, yes. You've spent more time with him than anyone. There are rumors…about a magical weapon that can kill him…" His voice faded away and Belle realized she had a choice in that moment.

She could tell him the truth. She didn't know anything about a weapon that could kill the Dark One. Rumplestiltskin had spoken of no such thing. And even if she knew of it, she wouldn't tell someone how to kill him.

Or she could pretend she knew of what he was talking about. She could escape from the Queen, from the tortures, maybe even escape from this man and set out for the Dark Castle on her own.

She raised her chin and stared the man down. "I know what you speak of."

A slow smile spread over the man's face. "Excellent," he murmured. "Now let's get you out of here." He pulled a second cloak from within the pack he wore beneath his own cloak and handed it to her. She was most amused that, unlike Rumplestiltskin, he made her put it on herself. Her strange companion had been far more chivalrous than whoever this man was.

As she did so, he looked out the door. "The guards will not be long." He turned back to Belle. "Are you ready?" Without waiting for her he opened the door and started to step out.

Belle reached out a hand, grabbed the man's upper arm. "Your name, sir. I will not leave with someone who remains nameless."

"You _are_ a feisty one, aren't you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. Then he leaned closer to her, far too close, his breath ghosting across her face as he spoke the next words. "I like feisty. I should have known you would be. Anyone who can face down that crocodile and live to tell about it must be." He gave a slight bow. "My name is Killian. Killian Jones. And we need to get out of here, Belle of the Marchlands. The Queen will not stand for your escape and if we don't leave now we will _both_ be caught. I'd rather get out of here with my head attached to my body."

Belle nodded and followed him out of the tower room.

* * *

They had traveled all through the next day, keeping off the main roads, racing through the woods. Jones had assured her there were horses, but he had not wanted to bring them too close to the Queen's castle for fear she would hear of their presence and send men to check them out. He had traveled on foot for nearly two days before arriving at the castle to rescue Belle. Their trip away from the castle was done perhaps faster than the one to it. They rushed headlong through the bushes, not concerned over what they trampled.

At one point, Belle had stopped the man, worried about the clear path they were creating in their rush. "Wouldn't it be smarter to go slower, cover our tracks? Maybe find a stream to walk in?"

Jones just gave her a look, one she knew all too well. The knights who had come to her tower with her father often gave her that look. Indulgent, somewhat annoyed, the look of men who didn't believe a woman had anything of the least bit of intelligence to say. In all honesty, if he had really paid much attention to her, if she were something other than some pawn in a game he was playing against Rumplestiltskin, he would have realized that Belle was being less than truthful herself.

She knew _he_ was not being truthful. Oh, she had no doubt he wanted to kill Rumplestiltskin. That much at least rang true. But she didn't believe he was there to save her duchy. She didn't even believe her duchy was under attack, certainly not by the ogres who had been banished and certainly _not_ by Rumplestiltskin.

So in a way they were even, just two people using each other for their own hidden purposes.

Their daytime hike through the deepest part of the forest finally led them to a small clearing. The sun was just lowering beneath the tree line and the shadows had grown long. "I'm afraid this is where we need to make camp for the night, love."

As much as Belle didn't want to camp down with this man, had been hoping they would find the horses before nightfall, she knew he was right. And she knew she'd have to continue traveling with him for the time being. The horses would give her freedom, the ability to slip away while he slept and get far enough away that he wouldn't be able to find her. She tried to forget that she had never actually ridden a horse. The most contact she had with one was the carriage ride for the one deal she had gone on with Rumplestiltskin. But how hard could it be anyway? Get on, tell the horse where to go, and just go. At this point it didn't even matter _where_ they went as long as it was away from the man who wanted to kill her love and away from the Queen who needed him to help her cast some nefarious curse.

So for now it was time to make camp. Jones refused to put her to much use, telling her to do no more than gather up some kindling wood to start the fire. She did as he asked, glad of some time to herself, away from the need for her constant lies.

When she returned with the wood, he started a nice fire, glanced up at the sky. "We should be safe here for the night. We're deep in the forest and I could hear no one following us. It was a clean getaway." He glanced over at her and for a moment he almost seemed impressed with her. She had kept up with him every step of the way, racing through the forest close on his heels, never complaining.

"You aren't quite the spoiled little princess I took you for," Killian said as he sat near the fire. He passed her a bit of jerky with a shrug. He had packed light, carried what food and water he could with him. He offered her his flask, likely full of some sort of rum, and Belle politely declined.

"I'll take that as a compliment." She bit into the jerky, pleased that it wasn't the worst thing she had tasted. She tried to forget that the worst thing she had tasted had been one of her own creations, something she made not that long ago in Rumplestiltskin's castle.

They ate in silence, finally broken by Killian. "So tell me, love. How did a lovely young woman such as yourself end up living in the Dark Castle?"

This, at least, she could be somewhat honest about. "I made a deal with him." She watched Killian's eyebrows rise with a smirk. "My homeland was being invaded by ogres and someone had to call on him."

"_You_ did?"

"Well, my father, really," she admitted. "But the deal was for me to come to his castle. And I agreed to it." It was a simplification of what had gone on, but it was good enough for now. She refused to say much more on it. What had gone on between Rumplestiltskin and herself was her own business. This Killian Jones, whoever he might be, did not need to know all that had gone on between them. "Why do you want to kill him?" She hadn't meant to ask, but it seemed that even now, even with her life in danger, she was still the ever curious one.

He let out a small bark of laughter. "It's that obvious then, is it?" He shook his head. "He killed the woman I loved, my Milah. It's really as simple as that."

"Why?" The word was out of her mouth before she could take it back. She knew far too much about Rumplestiltskin's dark side. She wasn't sure she needed one more story of the horrors.

"How much do you know of the Dark One?" His eyes were serious.

"Some," she said and shrugged her shoulders. She wasn't going to tell him more.

He gave her a grim look. "Once, long ago, the Dark One was a man. He had a wife, a lovely adventurous young woman named Milah. She was bored of her life married to a lame spinner and so ventured out to the pub most nights. There she met a dashing young pirate…"

"You," Belle said and tried to keep the grimness out of her voice. She had met _him_ and she knew this story did not end well for all concerned.

"Aye, love. _Me_. We fell in love. And she left with me…"

"Leaving Rumplestiltskin and his wee boy behind," she finished him.

"So you do know a bit about him. Aye, there was a son. A young boy named Baelfire. Milah and I…we always planned to come back for him someday."

_Someday_. They had planned to come back for the boy _someday_. That hardly seemed good enough, when it was clear that Rumplestiltskin's entire life had been devoted to the boy. "Yet you never did," she surmised.

He shook his head. "We never had a chance to. It seems that the Dark One lost him along the way and came looking for something Milah possessed. A magic bean." The look in his eyes was far off, remembering times gone past. She wondered how long ago it was. Rumplestiltskin had been alive for centuries. Was it possible this Killian Jones was alive just as long? She knew the Dark One was immortal. Was Jones as well?

"What would the Dark One need with a magic bean?" She crinkled her brow, eyes wide and confused. Belle was not an actress, not by any means, but it seemed that the man who was her rescuer was not able to tell otherwise.

With a laugh, he continued. "That son of his was gone to another world. And we held the _only_ way through. The confrontation ended with Milah's death and the bean in my possession."

She waited, quiet.

"He was the one who killed her…"

"Yes you told me that already." She crossed her arms over her chest.

"You don't believe me? You lived with him. Surely you must know what he's capable of." Belle did, to some degree. She had seen him with the sheriff. But Belle also knew he was capable of great good, that beneath the monstrous exterior, there laid a man. "He reached right into her chest, and tore her heart out and crushed it. She died in my arms, her love for me on her lips. And then, as retribution, he cut off my hand."

Belle wrapped her arms tighter around herself. She knew he had done much that would turn her stomach. "Why?" The word was whispered.

"Because she left him for me…"

"No." She cut him off. He was many things and she could well imagine that jealousy ran deep within him. But she somehow _knew_ this wasn't about Milah. As awful as the revelation was, she knew what the horrible thing he'd done was truly about. "She left his son."

"Aye she did at that."

"He did it for his son. Everything he's done, it's been for his son." She knew that was true with every fiber of her being. He had told her little of his life before becoming the Dark One. She wasn't even sure if he had always been such a creature or not. This man, this Killian Jones, had said he was nothing more than a lame spinner before he became what he was today.

She didn't know what to believe anymore.

The only thing she truly understood was that beneath it all, beneath whatever had come into his life and taken him over, he was a _good man_. She had seen proof of that time and time again.

Jones stood and walked over to her, knelt at her side. "I've rescued you from two of the worst beings in all the lands. The Queen has taken more hearts than she can count, controlling many, killing even more. And that crocodile you lived with is a vile coward who would betray you without batting an eyelash. You owe me, princess."

"I'm not a princess. And I owe you nothing." She scooted slightly away from his hovering presence.

"I want to know where the dagger is." He growled the words at her.

"The one that can kill him?"

"Yes." He lifted his left hand up and she finally could see the implement there, the hook that had replaced his hand.

"Are you threatening me?" She raised an eyebrow. "It seems you're not in a good position, Mr. Jones. I know where the dagger is. And _you_ do not." She waited for him to call her bluff, waited for him to strike her with the hook at the end of his arm. Neither happened. He just waited. "Since it seems you're willing to kill me, how about we make a deal?"

One of his eyebrows rose. "It seems you've learned a thing or two from the Dark One."

"Indeed I have. I watch, Mr. Jones. I study. So here's the terms. I show you to the dagger. And you will let me go free once you have it in your hands."

"Agreed."

Belle released the breath she was holding. Now she just had to find a way to escape from him before they reached Rumplestiltskin's castle.


	18. Chapter 17

It was a strange swirl of magic that hit him suddenly late one afternoon. He hadn't expected to feel such a thing ever again, if he were to really think on it long. It wasn't the purples or reds of his own magic, but a golden light that he had come to associate with Belle. Oh, she wasn't magical, not that one. But somehow when confronted with his magic, her own aura reflected back at him with a bright golden hue. Perhaps it was…well, whatever it was they had, their strange, hesitant affections for each other. He was still unsure what had happened there, in the darkened Great Room that night before she disappeared.

Feeling it again after all this time was torture.

He didn't know what it meant. She was dead and gone. Buried.

_Unless Regina had lied…unless her death was a lie_…

He had searched for her, many times, over the past few months. Never quite trusting his former apprentice, he had kept up his hunt for some sign of Belle. He had found none. She was simply…gone, her life force snuffed out.

But now…today…

He felt something, a tingle in his nearly-dead heart.

He needed to find out if there was anything to this magic, if it were true or some sort of falsehood created by someone else. Would anyone know how Belle's aura reflected his own? Would they know the color, the feeling of it? Perhaps if they had kept her hostage, subjected her to some sort of test…

But how?

Striding away from his wheel, his spinning forgotten for the first time in months, he rushed to his tower. He hadn't spent much time there lately, choosing instead to spend most of his time spinning in the Great Room. Sleep had eluded him. The tower room had made him depressed after a time, though he still found himself there at night, chased by the nightmares to the settee. The pillow no longer smelled like her, but it was hers. The settee no longer held her warmth, but it was hers. Sleep came no more easily there, but he at last felt a bit of comfort, wrapped up in those things he felt most connected him to Belle.

Returning to the room in the daylight almost felt odd. Had it really been so long? He couldn't remember the last time he had brewed any potions or done any magic in that tower room. He had taken no deals since Belle had disappeared. Some had come looking for one, striding up to the castle with a sense of inflated importance as they so often did, and his magic had turned them all away. They would find themselves back on the road that lead away from his castle as soon as they tried to cross the threshold onto the grounds.

He knew some were angry over that. He had watched that boy prince, _Charming_ the princess called him, try over and over again to get through his magic. It had almost been enough to convince him to allow him through, but his mood hadn't quite lightened _that_ much.

Retrieving the large bowl he used for scrying and setting it down on the table, he watched it fill with water. He always loved to watch it fill up, the water seemingly coming from nowhere and settling into the large metallic bowl, so still that it barely looked like there was anything there. After watching it for a moment, he turned, grabbed a small potion bottle without even needing to look at it. He had used it so many times since Belle had disappeared, coming up to scry nearly every day during the first month of her disappearance, trying to find any evidence of her being alive.

Now he had something.

A couple drops of the potion fell into the bowl, the water immediately clouding. He watched as it turned from green to blue and finally cleared. As he leaned over it, it became a mirror of sorts, reflecting back just a slightly distorted version of himself. He hadn't often looked in the scrying bowl before asking it to show what he wanted it to find. His appearance had changed so drastically with the taking on of this curse that still, even after all this time, he found it disconcerting to see his image.

Shaking himself, afraid that the scrying bowl would once again remain still, he leaned over it, shut his eyes, and spoke. "Show me Belle."

He remained as such for a short while and then, finally, opened his eyes. The water in the bowl was moving, swirling in a pattern he hadn't seen in far too long. The last time he had scried and actually found what he was looking for was before Belle had come to him. He didn't think to see it ever move for her.

And then she was there, in front of him, almost as if he could reach through and touch her. The image was real, not one out of his memories. _She_ was real. She was _alive_, sitting by a fire, pushing the wood around with a long stick.

_Will we find the horses today?_ Her voice was clear, sweet, just as he remembered only far better. Because it was _real_.

_We will, love_. He couldn't see the man who spoke but the voice sounded eerily familiar. A cold knot settled into the pit of his stomach. _It's not so far now._

He watched as Belle nodded and stood. The man finally appeared, striding over and handing her a cup and a hard biscuit with a somewhat sheepish look on his face. _It's all we have left. But it'll tide you over until I can find us something better. We'll hit a town tonight_.

"Hook," he growled and was surprised to see the man's head shoot up and his eyes scan the area around them. Killian Jones, the pirate who had once stolen his wife, had come to be known as Hook in later years due to the hooked implement that took the place of the left hand Rumplestiltskin had cut off hundreds of years ago. How Hook had escaped Neverland, the place he knew he last was located, was a mystery. How he came to be with Belle was a further mystery, one that he desperately needed to solve.

He watched as Belle smiled at the man and he felt his ire rise. _Thank you. I'll be grateful to travel faster_.

Hook walked out of the view as he spoke again._ And then we'll get to the crocodile's place sooner. Are you sure you won't just tell me about the dagger now and save us all of this?_

He saw a grimace cross Belle's face. His dagger? Did Belle know of his dagger? He had never spoken of it to her, had kept that secret from even someone who he had trusted enough to open up to about his son. She didn't know the nature of his particular curse, one he had studied for many years and still barely understood himself.

_I think not_. He almost laughed at the snippy sound of Belle's voice and the way her nose wrinkled up. He recognized that look all too well, the look of utter distaste. Good. This was good. Belle wasn't completely enamored of the pirate yet. He hadn't won her over to his side completely. There was still a chance. _We made a deal_.

_You sound just like him_. Hook sounded disgruntled, slightly angry. Rumplestiltskin couldn't even begin to guess how Belle had ended up with the likes of him. There was a story there, just waiting to be told.

But first he had to stage a sort of intervention and get her _back_. His Belle was alive. _Alive_. And she needed to be back where she belonged. _With him_.

* * *

Belle had barely slept the night before, worried about the man with the hook for a hand. Killian Jones played the gentleman with her, but she had no doubt he would kill her if given half the chance. There was something about him. She wasn't (_apostrophes and quotations marks went back to straight starting here_) sure what, but there was just _something_ that told her not to trust him. And it was about more than simply wanting to kill the man she had fallen in love with.

She was all too pleased to be able to use him to free herself of the Queen's tortures and find some way back to Rumplestiltskin. But that didn't mean she should trust him. And it didn't mean she should sleep peacefully on the opposite side of the fire from him. It certainly did _not_ mean curling up close to him, which was what he had indicated that he was hoping for. The man clearly knew her not at all and while his somewhat less than subtle advances had left her unsettled, she was glad for his lack of knowledge of her. If he had known her, he'd know she'd never betray Rumplestiltskin.

Jones was dousing the fire with a bit of water from his flask when she heard a rustling noise come from behind her. She jumped, turned, afraid of what she would find there.

And saw nothing.

"Well, well, well…what do we have here?" The voice that came out of the shadows around her was disembodied, but she breathed a sigh of relief. It was not the Queen.

She watched as Jones, still partially bent over the fire, stiffened and turned toward her. For a moment he was frozen. Belle's eyes widened and then suddenly he was in motion, pushing off the balls of his feet and rushing at her.

An arm came around her from behind, pulling her tight up against a body. Belle tried not to smile, instead staring straight ahead with wide eyes. Did it matter now if Jones knew she was never in it to help him? Rumplestiltskin could no doubt remove her from this situation with just a flick of his wrist.

But there was something about his voice. Something that left her slightly disturbed.

Jones took one more step toward them. The arm about her tightened and from the corner of her eye she could see Rumplestiltskin's hand come up, the fingers splay out, and then Jones froze in place, hand still raised toward her, a sneer on his face, eyebrows lowered.

There was no movement for a moment from Rumplestiltskin either, until Belle finally turned to face him, the arm still around her keeping her plastered up against him.

His expression was unreadable, anger, worry, desperation, and something else hidden in the depths of his strange eyes somewhere. She brought up a hand, touched his cheek lightly and his eyes finally met hers. He smiled, just a tremulous quirk of his lips.

"You were dead."

She tilted her head slightly to the side. "I was never dead."

His lips twitched just slightly. "No indeed. You look quite..." He waved one hand in the air as he paused, clearly looking for the right word. "Alive," he settled for.

Belle smiled, pressed herself a bit closer to him, more proof that she was alive than just mere words. She reached up, touched the side of his face, an echo of a time that now seemed long past. "I was captured…"

"By who Belle? Tell me who and I will _make them pay_." She shuddered at the sound of his voice, so raw, so angry. She remembered that voice turning back toward her, softening, calling her _my Belle_.

"Her name was Regina…"

She felt herself pulled ever tighter up against him. "I should have known…"

"What do you know of this woman?" She had no doubt he knew her, for the Queen clearly had some intimate knowledge of him. She knew _too much_for her to not have been close to him in some capacity. But she didn't know his weakness. It was what she had been searching for, why she had taken Belle from her home and locked her in yet another tower.

Belle didn't know his weakness either. But she suspected it lay in the dagger Jones kept asking her about.

"She was once my apprentice." The words sounded pained. "I won't give all the reasons I took her on, but I thought she was _you_."

Belle cocked her head to the side, a furrow forming between her brows. "Why would you think that?"

He smiled, a slightly sheepish look she had only rarely seen cross his face. "There was a prophecy, you see. A young woman would lead me to my son…"

"Me?" She remembered the eager look when she took to the library to search for some way to his son, the profound sadness when she turned up nothing new. _She_ was supposed to lead him to his son. Was that why he had wanted her in the first place? "How was I to lead you to your son?"

His eyes turned away from hers and he shrugged, slightly shook his head. "I don't know. I didn't even know who the young woman _was_. I thought it was Regina. She was to cast a curse." He paused there, clearly pained at going on.

"Go on," Belle said and the words were quiet, insistent.

"The curse would take us all to where my son was, the land without magic. Casting it…required something I could not give." He left it at that and Belle chose not to pry further. If he wanted to tell her, if he were comfortable telling her, he would. It was as simple as that.

"And so you thought I was supposed to cast a curse?" It was almost laughable. It had taken her months of study and a gathering of nerves to even do the one spell she had done. That was just one tiny spell to temporarily dissolve fairy magic. It had let her out and almost immediately closed up behind her. She was never sure if it was _supposed_ to close up that fast or if her attempt at it was just too weak for it to hold longer.

The thought of her casting a dark curse that would take them all to a different land was ridiculous at best.

"What?" He seemed surprised by her question. "No. Never mind. This is not important. How did you…" And he couldn't quite finish the sentence, gesturing at the frozen Killian Jones with the arm that wasn't still around her.

Belle looked briefly at Jones. "He came to rescue me. In exchange for leading him to a dagger..." She felt him stiffen and Belle tightened her arms around him. "I told him I would do it. It was the only way out of that tower. I planned to make my escape once we got to the horses."

He sagged slightly, the tension leaving him. His eyes met hers, strange reptilian irises meeting blue. "Belle..." he started and his voice was soft, slightly husky. She wrapped one arm around his shoulders, hand coming to tease at the nape of his neck. He shivered slightly beneath her touch. "That night in the kitchen…"

"Yes." The word was a mere whisper. _Yes I wanted to…yes I love you…yes I meant it._ And she couldn't stop herself, lifting herself up on her toes to press her lips to his.

It was just as glorious as the first time, with fewer doubts on his part. His mouth immediately opened as soon as her lips met his, the kiss deepening quickly. His teeth nipped at her lower lip and then soothed with his tongue. She clung to him, the kiss so much _more _than the last one.

He wrenched himself away, just as he did the last time, but this was so that he could follow the path of her jaw line with open-mouthed kisses. Belle had never felt this way before, warm and shivering and off-kilter all at the same time. She clung to him, one hand in his hair, the other stroking down across his shoulder and coming to rest at his waist, holding him close to her.

"Rumple…" She couldn't get his whole name out, the word ending on a quiet moan. She let him distract her for a moment more before finally sighing and pulling slightly away from him. "Rumplestiltskin." She spoke his name stronger and he finally stopped, leaning back from her and meeting her eyes. For a moment, she couldn't help herself. His smile was so genuine, perhaps the first truly genuine one she had seen grace his face. She returned the smile, reaching up as she did that night to stroke the side of his face. "What are we going to do with _him_?" she finally asked, removing her hand to point at Jones, who was still frozen in place.

"Ah yes." The words sounded pained. "_Hook_."

"Is that what you call him?"

"It's what he calls himself these days. 'Captain Hook' of the dreaded Jolly Roger." He waved a hand about in the air. "I suppose it gives him a more menacing air."

Belle giggled. "He was hardly that, though I did wonder…"

"Yes, well. I will take care of him. That much I promise you."

His words sounded dire and Belle shuddered, reached her hand back to him, placing it lightly on his chest. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"

"Worried about him, are you?" The words came out on a slight sneer.

She shook her head. "No. I'm worried about _you_."

"He can't defeat me…"

"That's not what I meant." Rumplestiltskin walked a dark path. She knew this. She had seen it herself quite clearly. But she had also seen him choose to walk a lighter path on occasion, letting the sheriff go, providing her with things that made her happy. He didn't have to do that. She didn't _expect_ him to do that when he first brought her to the castle. She expected to be given the bare necessities at best. He had surprised her. He continued to do so.

"I promise I will not kill him." She smiled. "But _he_ doesn't know that." And the mischievous imp personality was back. Belle just rolled her eyes. There was little she could do when he got in one of _these_ moods. He liked to toy with people, with their emotions, with their fears, with their hopes. It seemed Jones, _Hook_, was an old enemy. And she was quite sure that Rumplestiltskin would love no more than to torment an enemy that had been around as long as he had been.

"Just…"

"You have my word. I promise. I meant that." She leaned up and kissed him one more time, a slow lingering kiss that was over far too soon for Belle. She had him _back_. And had a chance to explore whatever this thing was they had. "I'm going to unfreeze him." Rumplestiltskin's voice broke into her reverie. "As soon as he starts moving, _run_."

"What? No…"

"Belle, just do as I ask."

"I'm not going to just run away while you deal with him."

"Belle, listen to me." He pulled himself slightly away from her, gripped her arms just beneath the shoulders. "I will take care of this problem. He cannot harm me. But he _can_ harm you. I want you out of here while I challenge him. Run and find some place to hide until I can come for you."

She shook her head.

"Yes. I _will_ find you."

And then he gave her no choice. One hand came up and the man he called Hook suddenly took another step forward. Belle's eyes met Rumplestiltskin's for just a moment, and she saw the small half smile form on his face. Then she was pushing away from him, running headlong into the forest.

She could hear Rumplestiltskin speak, loud and clear even from the increasing distance she was putting between them. "Oh dear! It seems the little birdy has flown the coop!" The last thing she could hear from him was the impish giggle, a harsh sound in the quiet of the woods.

Then she was too far away from them to hear anything else. She could feel no crackle of his magic, could hear no words coming from either of them. The only sound was her footfalls, the cracking of the branches beneath her feet, the rip of the fabric of her cloak when it caught on a large branch and she yanked it away in frustration.

She didn't know how long it was before her struggles for breath finally slowed her down. She could not see the clearing she had spent the night in, could not see the dying fire, Rumplestiltskin or Hook. When she finally stopped and leaned against a particularly large tree, the only sound in the forest was her harsh breathing.

_Hide_, he said. _Run and hide_. The forest was all very much the same. Was just being far away from them "hidden" enough? She was standing in plain sight, but of what? The trees, the bushes, the occasional bird that flew overhead. One thing she knew, only Rumplestiltskin had magic. Hook clearly had none so she didn't have to worry about his transforming into a bird and finding her, if such a thing were even possible in the first place anyway. She really didn't know the extent of Rumplestiltskin's magic. She had some idea of the magnitude of it, but he did not wax poetic on the nature of his magic, nor the limits. As far as she knew, there _were_ no limits.

He would find her. She had no doubt of it. But if Hook got away, if Hook came after her, he would easily find her standing in the middle of the woods.

She could not stay where any but Rumplestiltskin could find her.

Glancing around, she could see little that would easily hide her until she took a closer look at the tree she had stopped by. It was larger, taller, clearly older than the other trees that surrounded it. The base was knotted with several small openings. On the opposite side, hidden away from the direction she came, there was a large hole, one that seemed large enough for her to crawl in.

She didn't much care for small enclosed spaces.

She never had.

But it seemed that this was her only option without continuing her long trek into the forest in the hopes of finding _someplace_ to hide. Squatting down she peered into the hole and found it extended upward into the tree. There was certainly enough room for her inside it. With a shrug and a deep breath, she crawled in, pulling her skirts in behind her and tucking them up around her knees.

It was dark inside the tree, though she could see the light from outside filtering in so she didn't feel wholly cut off from the world outside. Leaning back, she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

Safe in the near-cocoon of the tree, she let her eyes drift shut.

Rumplestiltskin would find her.

They could go home soon.


	19. Chapter 18

A/N: I had a lot of questions from the last chapter as to why the kiss didn't break his curse. It's just not a direction I wanted to go into and since this is so seriously AU from canon, I decided that "true love's kiss" couldn't break the enchantment he's under. Simple explanation really, but I just didn't want to go down the "curse breaking" route in this particular fic!

Thank you ALL for your lovely reviews, comments, and thoughts on this fic. I hope you enjoy this next chapter!

* * *

Belle opened her eyes, panic hitting her for a moment before she remembered where she was. She had no idea how long she had slept for. The darkness and close space had lulled her into a deeper sleep than she would have expected considering the circumstances. It seemed darker in the tree now than when she had crawled in, the light that had filtered in through the hole gone. Rumplestiltskin had not found her, perhaps was searching the forest for her location even at that moment. A brief smile crossed her face. He had _found_ her. He would take her home where she belonged. And she would no longer trust strange men who came looking for him on the castle grounds.

Perhaps Rumplestiltskin's magic could protect her in the future.

She started to crawl toward the exit from the tree, but paused. She could hear nothing. No sound of footfalls, no shouts, no clash of swords. Surely by now Rumplestiltskin would have dispatched with the man he called Hook and come for her. Surely it would be safe to leave the protection of the tree.

As she pushed out of her hiding spot she was surprised to find that it was not actually night as she had assumed, but that somehow in the intervening time between her crawling into the tree and crawling out, brambles had grown up about it. Had Rumplestiltskin put them there to protect her? She couldn't figure out how else it would have happened quite so quickly.

She winced with the pain of the thorns snagging on her clothes, in her hair, and finally managed to push her way out completely. Landing hard on her hands and knees on the soft grass and muddy ground, she took a look around her. The tree she had come out of seemed larger than when she crawled in, more ominous, twisted in a way. It had seemed a friendly respite when she found it. Now it seemed fearsome, twisting its way high above the other trees around her.

She was alone in the forest, no longer fearing for her life from the pirate, from the Queen. Her heart no longer beat so fast she was sure it would fly out of her chest. It had to be the calm that made it seem so different. She was able to observe whereas before she could do little more than careen past things, seeing them as a mere blur out of the corner of her eye.

The forest around her was quiet, the same sort of strange hushed stillness that it had been when she crawled in. Rumplestiltskin had not found her and she worried that he had been somehow unable to track her. It didn't seem likely. He had tracked her down to where she was with Hook with little difficulty and she had been separated from him for months at the time, had only just regained her freedom. So where was he now? She couldn't imagine anything actually happening to him. Hook was strong, taller and larger than Rumplestiltskin. He was a scrappy fighter, of that she had no doubt, and she could tell he knew how to handle a sword and how to use that sharp hook of his to his advantage. But nothing could counter the magic that Rumplestiltskin wielded. She knew that he could vanquish the pirate with little more than a wave of his hand.

His choosing to confront him had far more to do with their history, with the death of the woman Hook loved, with the loss of his hand. She had left him to it for that reason and that alone. She didn't want to see what he did to the pirate. He had promised not to kill him. That was good enough for the moment.

Stepping away from the tree, turning around a few times, trying to figure out exactly which direction she had come from, Belle shouted his name. No sounds greeted her ears, save those of the forest. She did not hear her name called back at her, did not see the familiar purple smoke of his magic.

She turned to look back at the tree. The hole she had crawled into had been facing the opposite direction from which she had come, more or less. Taking a deep breath, she walked away from the tree in what she hoped was the direction she had come from. She hoped that somehow the two men were still embroiled in their fight, in an argument, in anything. Rumplestiltskin wouldn't have abandoned her and Hook seemed unlikely to leave something behind that could gain him what he wanted.

Rumplestiltskin said he would find her and he would. She had to believe that. There was still so much to be said between them, a need to confess to feelings that they were both still reeling from, still afraid to admit.

She had been walking for some time before she called out his name again. There was no response. She could still hear nothing more than the birds in the trees, the rustling of the leaves in the wind. She picked up the pace, her feet carrying her swiftly over the ground. By the time she reached the clearing she had camped down in with Hook, she was running headlong through the forest.

She came upon it suddenly, stopping to catch her breath.

There was nothing there. The fire was gone. All signs that anyone had once been there were gone. She was sure it was the same clearing, the pattern of trees not altered from her last visit here, though nothing seemed right somehow. The trees seemed larger, darker. It was the same forest and yet not.

"Rumplestiltskin!" She shouted his name. Was it his doing? The alteration of the forest? She shouted his name one more time.

"Can we help you?" The voice came from somewhere behind her and she whirled around, wishing she had some way to protect herself. The best weapon she had were her shoes and those were hardly a deterrent to any would-be attackers. She contemplated grabbing one off her foot to wield it, just in case, but stopped short when she saw the two people standing just barely inside the clearing.

They were dressed similarly, though one was male, the other female. Both wore trousers of some loose dark blue material, long-sleeved tops. The male had a hat of some style atop his short hair. The woman's long hair was pulled back from her face in a severe style. They carried packs on their back, as if they had been walking these woods for a long time.

Belle had never seen anyone who looked quite like them. She admitted to on occasion thinking it would be easier to get around if she, too, could wear trousers, but she never would have dared. She didn't even dare the night she had escaped from the tower. She didn't even dare at Rumplestiltskin's castle, though no one would see her but the sorcerer. And what did he care for societal norms?

"Can we help you?"

Belle realized she was staring and averted her eyes. "I'm sorry. I was looking for someone…"

"We've seen a few people on our way through…" the man started to say and Belle turned to him, a smile on her face.

"Rumplestiltskin?"

"Pardon me?" The beginning of her good mood started to deflate.

"Was one of the people you saw Rumplestiltskin?" Surely they could have seen no other.

The girl gave a short bark of what Belle assumed was supposed to be laughter. "The little creature who spins straw into gold?"

Belle nodded. "Yes. Yes, so you do know him, though I wouldn't exactly describe him as a 'little creature.' He was in these woods, in this very clearing not long ago, fighting with a man he called 'Hook.'"

"As in Captain?" The man spoke, for the woman's mouth was slightly agape and her eyes wide. _Was she frightened of Hook? Did she know him?_ Neither seemed scared when she mentioned Rumplestiltskin. Usually the name of the Dark One was enough to send people running in terror. But these people laughed.

"Rumplestiltskin did say he was the captain of a ship, so yes. I suppose that would be Captain Hook."

"Alright alright, I get it." The woman approached Belle. "Are you one of those Ren Faire junkies? I know they're into all that weird shit."

"Ren…faire?"

The man stepped closer to the woman, drew her slightly away from Belle. The look in his eyes was not one of laughter, but of concern, mostly for the woman he was with rather than Belle. The shuttered glances he sent her way made her nervous. She could hear the woman whisper words that sounded like _mental_…and _escaped_.

When the woman turned back to her, she seemed less open, more wary. "What's your name, sweetie?"

"Belle…"

"As in 'Beauty and the Beast'?"

Belle shook her head. "As in Belle of the Marchlands. It's a small duchy to the north of here. I doubt you've been there."

"Oh no indeed. Of that I can be sure." The words were sardonic and made Belle slightly uncomfortable. She was sure somewhere in the midst of their words was an insult.

The man suggested Belle accompany them on their way out of the forest. They mentioned getting to a main road and making a "call" to someone to aid them. It was not a phrase she was familiar with, but perhaps these people possessed some sort of magic. Perhaps they could "call" Rumplestiltskin from the main road. She didn't know why they couldn't do that from within the forest, but everything about these people was strange and confusing. Admittedly, she hadn't been out much, going straight from her tower to Rumplestiltskin's castle, but still these people struck her as off in some way.

She took a deep breath, unsure if she should follow, unsure if she should trust them. They were, however, the only people she had met out here and they seemed as if they at least _wanted_ to help her. She didn't dare pass up what could be her only chance to reunite once more with Rumplestiltskin. Nodding, Belle agreed to go with the pair and followed behind them as they turned to head back into the woods.

* * *

They had walked for what felt like forever to Belle. She did her best to keep up with the couple, but it seemed they had the footwear and were far more built for long walks in the woods. Her dress continually caught on branches. Her shoes were already far too worn and the small heels made it easy for her to trip over the occasional root that crossed her path. The man, someone whose name she finally found out was Dave, helped her up more than once.

Several times he asked the woman, Katie was her name, to slow down. But Katie refused, giving him looks that Belle could not properly read. There was a subtext there that she didn't quite understand, looks shared between people who were obviously close in some way. And so Dave helped her up quickly, pushing her to catch up to Katie's pace.

It was grueling.

And never was she so happy to see the edge of the woods, the main road they had discussed. It was wider than the roads she was used to, hard packed with something grey rather than dirt. It had less give, she realized, as she walked onto it. Dave reached out a hand and pulled her back.

"Be careful. A car could be coming." She stared at him for a moment.

"I think I've got cell reception here, Dave." Belle turned to see Katie pull some small object out of her pocket and hold it up briefly in the air before tapping at it with her thumb and holding it to her ear.

Belle understood none of this but watched with some fascination. As the woman began to speak, she realized it must be some sort of magical communication device, perhaps a small mirror that these wizards used as Rumplestiltskin did, to communicate with others far away. It was unlike those that he had at his castle. Rather than looking into it, the woman held it to her ear and began to speak through it somehow. Belle had little experience with magic. She'd have to ask Rumplestiltskin about this form of communication later.

"We found a woman wandering the woods…Yes…can you get a lock on my location? US1. Not far from Warren. That sounds right…No she's not hurt…But I think she might be a mental hospital escapee." Belle took a step backward as the woman glanced her way briefly. "She's dressed like she works at a Ren Faire…you know, Renaissance Faire. Big ol' dress…cloak. She was running around the woods frantically calling for…" Her voice lowered as she turned away from Belle and she couldn't hear her for a moment. "Yes that's right. Rumplestiltskin and Captain Hook. I wish I were lying…"

Belle grimaced. Something in the woman's tone left her feeling nervous, worried. She turned away as Katie's eyes fell on her once again, wondering if perhaps she weren't better off without these people. Dave seemed nice enough, offering her a hand when she fell, keeping her away from Katie's ire, but the young woman had taken a near-instant dislike to her.

As she turned, cheeks red in embarrassment for _something_ she didn't even understand, _it_ approached. She didn't know what _it_ was, but it was coming up fast, belching smoke and making a thunderous noise. Katie still stood on the edge of the road, magical communication device held to her ear. She didn't seem to notice its approach. Belle glanced at Dave and he seemed to pay it no mind either. Eyes wide, she realized that _she_ would have to be the brave one. Shouting something nearly incoherent to get her attention, Belle rushed at the other woman, pushing her out of the way of the _thing_ that seemed set on attacking them.

They both went down, Dave flying after them. Katie shouted a string of curse words as she hit the ground and rolled away from Belle. Dave pulled her to her feet as the creature roared past them, leaving nothing but smoke and silence in its wake.

Belle remained sprawled on the ground, dress torn and knees scraped on the hard road, hands thrown out in front of her. No one helped her up. Katie was pushing away from Dave, away from her. Dave was trying to console Katie and occasionally turning to give Belle bewildered looks.

"I'm sorry," Belle started to say, but she didn't know where to go from there. She didn't even know what she was apologizing for. Everything was so jumbled that she couldn't make hide nor hair of anything going on around her. She was left to react, her mind nearly blank from confusion and panic.

Katie ignored her and leapt for the communication device she had been using before. "Oh thank God, Dave. It's still working…yes…I don't know what just happened. She attacked me."

"No…" Belle began to rise, but Dave came, stood over her.

"Just stay there." His voice had changed, his reception to her gone chilly.

"There was a creature." She felt tears well up in her eyes as she looked up at him. Nothing here made sense, not the people who had taken her along with them, nor the strange creature, nor the fact that Rumplestiltskin was nowhere to be seen.

Dave's eyebrows shot up. "That was a _truck_," he hissed at her.

Belle shook her head, feeling exceptionally stupid. "A what?" She had not heard of such a creature before and considering the amount of reading she had done, she was most dismayed. It seemed that she still had much to learn about the world around her.

"Just…_nevermind_." He turned away from her and approached Katie.

"They said to stay on the line," she could hear her say as they leaned their heads in close. The rest of the words were lost to her as Katie turned away, not that they would have made much sense to start with.

Belle finally managed to stand, pulling herself up as she tripped over her rather mangled dress. The one that the Queen had dressed her in was practical to some degree, slit up the side for easy movement, but it was still floor-length and on Belle's petite frame often got caught up. She wasn't ever supposed to go walking in it. It was an outfit meant for sleeping in her aboveground dungeon, nothing more.

The pair who had been so helpful kept their distance, their eyes never quite leaving her. "I'm sorry," she tried to say to them again and watched as their faces turned down in matching frowns. "I really am. You're not…hurt?"

"She's fine. But just…please stay right there," Dave said and put a bit more distance between the pair and Belle.

Belle nodded, blinking back tears. They had been at least somewhat helpful so far, bringing her this far, trying to call for help. "I didn't mean to scare you." And she didn't. She really didn't. Rumplestiltskin often reveled in leaving people off, frightened, worried about his next move. Belle liked to be honest and forthright. But nothing she did here was _correct_. Everything had become a muddled mess and she felt on edge, too afraid to do anything for fear she'd screw things up further, too afraid to just walk away even if it would be easier for them all.

It was some time that they stood in their antagonistic near-silence. The pair spoke together in soft voices, occasionally speaking to the person on the other side of their magical communication device. Belle remained several feet away, arms wrapped around herself, trying not to listen for the occasional word that indicated they were speaking of her.

She wanted to call out to Rumplestiltskin.

She didn't dare.

Finally another one of those _creatures_ came careening around the bend. This one seemed smaller, the noises it made a series of high-pitched squeals and accompanied by lights that flashed blue and red. Coming up behind it was another creature, smaller, black and white, with the same squealing noise and flashing lights.

She was surprised to see people coming out of the creatures and with their being stopped, was able to take a closer look at them. Both had wheels and both, it seemed, were some sort of means of transportation rather than creatures in and of themselves. They had no horses but it seemed they were controlled by _people_. No wonder they had been so harsh with her. Belle felt a wave of embarrassment hit her. There was nothing here that made sense to her. Carriages without horses, women in trousers, strange communication devices. She had disappeared into that tree and emerged into what almost felt like a different world.

_That tree…_

She had little time to ponder that thought. One of the men who had emerged from the first carriage was approaching her, a second man not too far behind. The man who came from the second one tugged at his belt, lowered the hat he was wearing and came up behind the first man. There was what she could only assume was a weapon attached to his belt. The way his hand hovered over it while watching her raised the hair at the nape of her neck.

She took a step back, glanced at the woods behind her.

"What's your name, Miss?" the first man said. She turned back to him, eyes narrowed.

"Belle."

"And your last name?"

"I do not know what a 'last name' is. I am called Belle of the Marchlands." She raised her chin slightly.

"Ok, Miss Belle…of the Marchlands…" The man nodded slowly, carefully, as he approached. "We need you to come with us."

"No." Belle shook her head, backed up a few feet.

The man exchanged a quick glance with the other man and then both rushed forward, grabbed her by the arms. Belle tried to back up further, tried to push away from them. "Please…let me go. I need to get back to Rumplestiltskin!"

"See what I mean?" She could hear Katie's voice coming from somewhere off to the side. She glanced that way quickly and saw one of the other men with the pair who had brought her this far, the pair who had brought these men to her.

She was going to be locked up _again_. She had spent too much of her time locked away, stuck in towers, kept away from people. _For her own protection_…that's what they always said. To keep her from the Dark One, to protect her from her own fate, to keep her safe. These men spoke to her in soft voices, but held her with a firm grip. There was no real kindness there, though they put on a good act.

"Please," Belle said, her voice soft. "This is all a misunderstanding. I _want_ to go back to Rumplestiltskin. He would never harm me. If you could just let me go, I'll go back on my own and keep looking."

"Sorry Miss, you can't do that." He started to pull her along after him.

Belle pulled back, hard, and her arm slipped from his grasp. Taking a deep breath, not even pausing to really think about what she was doing, she turned and ran into the woods. It was her best effort. It was all she could think to do. She couldn't be captured by these strange men, taken away in their strange carriages. She had to find Rumplestiltskin.

He would be looking for her.

Already he no doubt realized she had disappeared.

She had taken no more than a handful of steps into the forest when she felt a hand grab her arm in a punishing grip. She was yanked backward, almost off her feet and the arms came around her, holding her tightly to the man's body. She saw the other man approaching them, something sharp in his hand.

She struggled.

She kicked out.

She tried to free an arm and punch one of the men.

She could do none of it, arms held tightly at her side, the man's tight grip holding her firmly in place. The other man approached and there was a sharp prick of pain in her upper arm.

As she tried to pull away one more time, she felt her knees buckle beneath her.

And then the world went dark.


	20. Chapter 19

Rumplestiltskin had traced her as far as a tree in the middle of the forest. Once he had dispatched with Hook, toying with him and finally sending him off to the Infinite Forest where he could while away his time and think about all that he had done, he had immediately set out to find Belle.

_His Belle._ She had not run from him. She was not dead.

She did not regret their meeting in the dark of night, the kiss in the kitchen. _She did not regret it_. That was more than he ever could have imagined, more than he could have hoped for.

He didn't honestly know what to do with her and now he wasn't sure what he _could_ do. She had run this far, finding the tree and then…nothing.

The magical trail led to the tree and no further. He had cast the spell multiple times and it never changed, the blue trail leading to the same place each time. Once he followed it into the hollow of the tree, and watched the trail simply dissipate before his eyes. She had been there. She no longer was.

With a snarl he cast a fireball at the tree and watched as it set fire to the grass around it. The tree remained untouched.

"It's magic, Rumplestiltskin. You cannot destroy it."

He turned at the sound of the voice, letting out a hiss of annoyance. "I can see that." His voice turned petulant. "What do you want?"

He had not seen the Reul Ghorm since long before he took Belle to his castle. She had remained quiet, had not attempted to contact him, had not attempted to stop him from bringing Belle back with him. He had honestly expected _something _out of the sneaky little fairy.

"She's gone." Her voice sounded smug.

"Where?" His tracing spell had not worked beyond the hollow of the tree. She had gone into it, but had not come out. Whatever magic had been there did not take him along with it when he entered.

"To another world, one you cannot reach." Shades of another conversation, a great many years ago, floated through his mind. _Another time, another place, but the same annoying little jellyfish hovering nearby._

He waved a hand in front of his face, swatting at the little creature and was most annoyed to see her change size, becoming the human equivalent of a fairy, wings banished for the time being. She was no less sanctimonious for her lack of looking like a fairy. "Tell me where she is." The words were terse, each pronounced with a sharp edge. His eyes narrowed as he raised a hand toward the fairy.

She just raised one eyebrow at him, crossed her arms over her chest. Her refusal to answer was more than enough to prove what he feared.

"She's gone to the land my son went to." He spoke quietly, the words flat. There was no hint of a question in his voice. The look on the fairy's face told him all he needed to know. Belle had gone to the land without magic, the same land he had been trying to reach all these centuries. She was as lost to him now as his son had been all this time. "How?"

The Blue Fairy at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. "No one should have been able to find this tree. I don't know how she did. Perhaps it was because her life had been touched by fairy magic and she was running from a threat."

"So you don't know?" The words were smug and he crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking the Blue Fairy's stance.

She looked away from him. "No. But you cannot use it to find her." He started to speak again, but she cut him off with a somewhat imperious sweep of her hand. "Only one can go through. The magic is null and void."

"Is it now?" He took a step closer. "Then I suppose I will have to find another way through."

He saw the color drain from her face, watched her eyes slide away. She knew. She remembered. The conversation was long ago, but she _remembered_.

The curse was his only way through. He had looked for so many ways to get there to avoid the curse, but in the end it was the only way. The Blue Fairy had told him as much with her silence over two hundred years ago. He had chosen not to believe her. He had looked for magic beans, portals, hats, contacted every realm jumper he knew. He had tracked down the woman who was supposed to lead him to his son and brought her to his castle. He had tried _everything_. It seemed the curse was all that was left to him.

And Regina was the only one who could cast it. The curse was dark, the most evil thing he had ever done in his life. It would tear apart their land, tear apart families. It would take them all to the land without magic and leave them there with no memories of their world, no memories of those who loved them. With Regina's casting of it, their happy endings would be destroyed as they struggled to figure out who they were in the new land.

Regina would rule them all. It was the _only_ way.

With one final, dire glance at the Blue Fairy he disappeared.

* * *

"To what do I owe this little visit, Rumple?" The Queen was seated on her throne, leather-clad legs sprawled out over the side of it, riding crop in hand. Her lips were pursed as she spoke, not quite able to hide the smile that was breaking out on her face. If there was one thing Rumplestiltskin knew in this world, it was Regina. He had been there for much of her early life, hidden behind the scenes, watching as her mother, also steeped in dark magic, raised her with a heavy hand.

He had done little to interfere, preferring to keep out of the way, waiting for the time to strike.

And strike he did. She was his _creation_, the monster that would curse them all. Oh, he didn't make her everything she was. No, much of that was due to her mother, a cold, heartless woman named Cora. She had made sure that Regina was twisted up inside, any goodness in her trampled down with just a few well-placed words and a little magic.

When Regina was ready, Rumplestiltskin was there. He taught her the dark arts, the magic he had been granted when he took on the mantle of the Dark One. She was not his equal, though she liked to believe she was, but she knew _enough_ at this point. Enough to cast the curse. That was all that mattered. She had one purpose in life and one only. Beyond that, Rumplestiltskin couldn't be bothered with her.

"I think you know." He bared his teeth at her as he stalked closer.

She at least looked slightly nervous of him. He was fairly sure she thought she could best him, though he knew who would come out on top in any sort of magical battle. He had taught her all she knew, that much was true. But he had not taught her all _he_ knew. There were many tricks he had yet to show her, many things he would _never_ teach her. But casting the curse? That much he could show her.

"The curse," she murmured, finally rising to her feet to approach him.

"You have it?" He cocked his head slightly to the side, quite pleased when she moved her hand slightly and the scroll appeared. She wasn't quite the showman he was. She gave no real flourish of her hand, no dramatic gesture, but she knew how to use the magic he had given her. He tittered quietly as it appeared.

"Your little friend was no match for me." Her smile was smug.

"_My_ friend?" He gave a slight giggle, just enough to throw her off her game. "Maleficent was hardly _my_ friend. You were the one who went crawling to her over and over…"

"Enough!" She stood toe to toe with him by now, the high heeled boots she wore giving her some inches over him. It sometimes amused him, to watch people much larger than he cower before him. But not the Queen, not Regina. She had never cowered. She used her height advantage any chance she got, hoping to make him feel small. It never worked, except when he used it to his advantage as he did now.

He stepped back slightly, brought his hands up. "Of course," he murmured, turning his gaze away from her. Regina never had been quite able to figure him out, falling for one trap after another as he lured her in. He was always guaranteed to see her go overboard, take things further than he planned for her to. She was never one for subtlety, instead plowing through with a great bit of noise and fury. Where he finessed, she threatened. Where he manipulated, she murdered.

"What are you here for, Rumple?" Her voice sounded somewhat tired, annoyed. He could well imagine what the days since getting her hands on the curse had entailed. She was missing an important piece of it, that tiny little thing that would cause it to go into effect and that _he_ had purposely kept from her all these years.

"Why the curse of course. Did you think I'd be here for something else, dearie?" His voice was high-pitched, an attempt at an innocence that was long gone.

"I thought maybe…"

"Belle?" The small smirk gracing his face opened up into a wide smile. He watched as Regina's eyes widened just slightly. "Oh, you didn't think I'd find out, did you?" He walked a slow circle around her, each step deliberate, each perfectly timed.

Regina stayed completely still and he hoped she remembered his words of a handful of months ago. He promised she would pay. And even though his Belle was not dead, even though she yet lived on even if in a different world, Regina _would_ pay…someday. He leaned in close to her, mouth scant inches from her ear. "Luckily for you, I _need_ you." Regina turned to look at him and he arched one eyebrow, smirk back, hands clapping together in glee.

"Fine, fine. What do you _need_ me for?"

"So frustrated, are we?" The words were said with a slight pout, quick and cutting.

"You came to me," she pointed out, one perfectly manicured hand indicating the room around her.

"So I did." He continued to traverse the room, occasionally picking up an object, passing it quickly from hand to hand, setting it down. He picked up a mirror, studied his own reflection and managed to keep his expression schooled to not show the disgust he felt at seeing himself there. Setting it down, he reached for another bauble, a small crystal ball that he knew Regina prized for being a portable means to spy on people. He heard the annoyed sound she made as he did so and turned back to her with a grin. "Why haven't you cast the curse?" He set the ball down and watched with great glee as she rushed forward to save it from falling from the table.

"I tried…"

"Did you now?" Oh yes, this was his moment. "And it didn't work? Something…missing?" He waved his hand in the air. "Perhaps?"

Regina sat down, her lips pursed, eyes narrowed. "It fizzled."

"Oh dear, that's too bad." He made a tisking noise and was pleased to see Regina stand, rounding on him with her eyes flashing.

"You malevolent little imp. You left something out. You did this on purpose."

Of course he had. He couldn't allow her to cast such a curse without his being completely sure he wanted her to. She knew all the ingredients, save one. She had the scroll, a hair from each of the most evil beings in the land, save his own. He had created it after all and had included that bit of fluff to make it that much more difficult for her. But give her the whole curse? He was not that stupid.

"Did I?" He knew she wouldn't buy his innocent act. But he also knew she'd give him exactly what he wanted, what he _needed_ from her.

The curse would affect him as much as it affected everyone else in the Enchanted Forest. He would be transported along with them, lose his memories, be given a whole new life with a new set of memories. None of that would be under his control. The caster shaped the curse. He had drilled that little bit of information into Regina's head for years. Cast the curse, shape the form it took. It means that for _this_ curse, Regina would mold it to do what _she_ wanted. Snow White and her Prince Charming would be separated. Everyone would be miserable. Their new identities would be those of people who drifted through life, never quite being able to connect with one another, never quite being able to find their happiness. And he would be a part of that as well, cursed as well and truly as everyone else in the Enchanted Forest.

Unless he changed that.

Unless he made a deal with the curse caster.

Regina studied him for a moment with narrowed eyes before finally smiling. "Alright, Rumple. You want something. I want something. And one thing you always taught me…" She moved closer to him. "When two people want something the other has, a deal can always be made."

His hands came together with glee. "_Now_ you're talking."

"You know what I want. So what do _you_ want?"

_Always to the point_. He leaned closer to her, allowing his breath to fan out over her face, pleased to see his former apprentice refuse to back away. He had no doubt she was uncomfortable. Everyone he dealt with, everyone who he got close to _was_ uncomfortable. He was used to it. Only Belle had not flinched away from him, had in fact drawn him closer little by little. He allowed the pause to linger for a moment, watching Regina's face flush slightly. Then finally he spoke. "Comfort."

"Comfort?" She seemed surprised at his request.

"In this new world, I want a good life, riches…"

She cut him off. "Fine, fine. You can have an estate and all the money you need."

"I wasn't done." His voice had turned sharp. Comfort and riches, they were just a small part of what he wanted. They would enable him to do what needed to be done to find Belle, to find his son. He didn't want to be struggling to make money while looking for them. "I want my memories." Regina opened her mouth to speak, but he held up one finger. "And this is non-negotiable, my dear apprentice. I need to know who I am. And I want to be able to leave your little town with those memories intact."

Regina's eyes widened. "How did…"

"How did I know you'd trap us all? Dearie, I _created_ you. I _know_ you. I know why you want this curse. No more happy endings, yes? But you're going to exempt me from that little bit of your curse."

"Or…"

"_That_ is my deal, dearie. You agree to give me what I want when you cast the curse, I tell you how to do it. It's really quite that simple" He turned away from her with a flourish. It was now up to her. She could take the deal or she could refuse to grant him what he wanted and see if she could figure out the curse herself.

His former apprentice was fairly intelligent. But he knew she'd never discover it on her own. He knew she would take the deal.

"Fine. You may have your memories, your good life, and your ability to leave my town whenever you wish."

He turned halfway back toward her. "_With_ my memories…"

"Yes, yes. With your memories."

"Excellent." His hands came together softly. "Then you shall get what you want."

* * *

He felt it happen long before it made its way to his dark corner of the world, the feeling of lightning racing through his body as the power was unleashed. Standing high in his tower, the one he had shared with Belle all those nights after his nightmares, he watched and waited for the world to crumble around him, his hand slowly caressing the wheel that had been so precious to him all these years. It was to be the end of everything, the end of the world they knew. He didn't know what the curse would leave in its wake here in the Enchanted Forest, but no one, no corner, would be untouched by it. There were times he regretted it, uprooting so many, allowing Regina to have her say over what the curse entailed. There were times he almost gave up, times he wondered if he could allow his son to live out his life without him. But he was never able to give up the dream, the hope, that he would see his son again. Even if for no other reason than to tell him he was sorry, that he had been an awful father, and to make sure his son was happy in the life he had landed in.

He had no delusions about what he might find. He knew that after all this time his son would be angry with him, perhaps not even want to see him. But all he _needed_ was to know he was alright, that he had a chance at happiness. If he knew that, he could move on with his life, give up his power, try to find his own happiness. If one such as he even deserved such a thing.

His preparations for the curse had taken some time and he had known, when he returned, that he had that time. Regina would waver on casting the curse. He could see it in her eyes. Once she found out she would have to kill the thing she loved most, he knew she would have to take the time to debate the worth of the curse. It was a harsh one, the requirements to cast it as great as the results. True darkness required true darkness to create it. He never could cast it himself and so he had groomed Regina to do the dirty work, pushing at her, teaching her dark magic, helping to bring out the dark heart he knew beat inside her. She _was_ her mother's daughter after all.

So he had the time, though it truly took little time to prepare. His castle would be gone after the curse, the items from it that were important would transport to the new land along with him. He had made sure of that. He didn't know in what form they would manifest themselves in this new land, but the collection would be there, even if the castle was not.

He would miss his castle, his home of the past couple centuries. It had been abandoned some time ago, the seat of power in an inhospitable land. The king had moved his family to a land further to the north, where it was a more temperate climate and the villages that had grown up about it had disappeared as well. When he came to reside there the castle had been crumbling into ruins. His magic had rebuilt it to the place he now called home, a castle the seat of his own private kingdom.

He hadn't realized quite how lonely it was until he brought Belle there. With her absence, it had become nothing more than a place to live again.

For a time it was a home.

It was no longer.

Now it was time to go home to his son, to Belle, to an unfamiliar land so very different from their own.

In the distance he could see the strange storm of roiling magic rolling over the fields. It engulfed absolutely everything, creeping over the pond where a beautiful young woman had once offered to help find his son, engulfing the gardens she had tended so carefully to, and finally wrapping its oily tentacles around the castle itself.

The last to disappear was the tower he occupied. He gave the wheel one last spin as the magic crept over his feet and the world went dark around him.


	21. Chapter 20

His eyes drifted open, still bleary from sleep. He remembered crawling into bed late last night, paperwork overwhelming him until he barely made it up the stairs from his study to his bedroom. He had stripped down and gotten into bed without even bothering to brush his teeth or put on pajamas. He had really been that exhausted.

For a moment he lay there, eyes trained on the ceiling of his bedroom, just barely able to make out the swirled texture of the paint as he slowly came to full consciousness.

Everything flooded him a moment later, memories of two worlds clashing inside his mind, headache starting just behind his eyes. He was in Storybrooke. Here his name was Mr. Gold. He searched his memories for his first name and found none. He was simply _Mr. Gold_, first name unknown. Leave it to Regina to leave the man who considered names important without one. He supposed he should be thankful. "Rumplestiltskin" was quite a mouthful, a name even Regina had stumbled over the first time she had called him to her and one that had gotten laughter in his life before he became the Dark One. He couldn't imagine what unpronounceable thing she would have come up with had she thought about it.

So Mr. Gold he was. He sat up in the bed, held his hands out in front of himself, flexing the fingers. Human…he was human again. He hadn't looked fully human for as long as he could remember, the curse changing so much about his appearance when he first took it on that he had spent hours that first week staring into the mirror, a sneer across his otherworldly features. Here he had no magic and so no curse to corrupt his body.

He couldn't even remember what he had looked like before the curse took effect.

Twisting on the bed, he let his bare feet hit the cold floor and attempted to stand. Pain shot through his right leg, causing him to gasp and fall back just to get it to stop. It was something he hadn't felt in years, something he had nearly forgotten about, the first thing his curse had taken care of. But here, in this magicless world, the old self-inflicted injury was back. It was, ultimately, what had started the chain of events that lead to the here and now. After injuring himself to escape the war and return to his newborn son, he had been branded a coward, ridiculed, reviled, brought to his knees in shame time and time again, until he had taken on the curse of the Dark One. He had reveled in that curse in the beginning and ultimately that drove his son away from him.

Now here he was again, a crippled old man, the magic he had come to rely on gone. He could feel it, somewhere brimming beneath the surface. But here he couldn't access it. Here it dissipated as soon as he tried. It was a strange feeling, like one addicted to a drug he could smell, but could not inhale, could not get that high off of it that he so desperately needed.

He shook his head slightly, allowing his mind to sift quickly through the implanted Mr. Gold memories. He saw the cane leaning against his bed, an elegant substitute for the notched walking stick he had once used. It would lend him a certain amount of dignity here in this world, marking him as a distinguished older gentleman instead of the town coward.

As he stood, walking slowly with the use of the cane, rebalancing himself to the feel of his twisted ankle, he realized the extent of his influence in this little town, this _Storybrooke_, that his apprentice had created. It seemed that while she was mayor of their rather ridiculously named town, he was the most feared. He owned most of it, spending his days collecting rent and overseeing his pawn shop. The shop contained items once important to most of the town and so people tended to wander in and never quite find what it was they were looking for.

It was a strange life he led in a strange town. But it seemed Regina had kept her promise. He was comfortable. He was rich. He knew who he was. He had no reason to believe he couldn't leave the town. Others would not be able to. The curse would find some way to keep them within the borders. But he had been granted the ability to drive out of town without looking back.

Once he knew where Belle was, he would do so. And once he knew where _she_ was, once he had her back with him, they would set off in search of his son. He had to still believe she would lead him to his boy, even in this strange new world.

* * *

He had spent some time that morning staring at his face in the mirror. Without thinking, he had walked into the bathroom to begin his morning ablutions, and found he could not look away. It had been so long since he had seen his own reflection and even longer since he had seen himself looking like this. He had forgotten the deep worry lines between his brows, the lines about his mouth, his tired human eyes. He looked gaunt here, a little pale, dark circles beneath his eyes. Regina had given him the comfort and riches he so sought, but had not given him a happy life. Mr. Gold's memories were difficult to sort through, a jumbled mess of anxiety and depression treatments, a son who had died in a car accident, an ex-wife who hated him. He was not a happy man here in this cursed world and that deep unhappiness was reflected on his face.

The world would not see it, not this world at least. He would go out with teeth bared and eyes narrowed as he always did, but those hid a deep-seated loneliness that only Belle and his son could remedy.

He never realized quite how lonely he was until she had touched his life and then disappeared from it. His driving force had been his son and so he had never bothered to take the time to examine his current life. All that mattered was getting to his boy.

Here in this world, even that was taken away from him, leaving him the lonely old town monster, a pariah people would sooner spit on than talk to if they weren't so scared of him. Mr. Gold liked it that way. Rumplestiltskin would play the part as best he could. He _was_ a showman after all. And being the Dark One, he was used to their fear. Mr. Gold had had to create the sense of menace that came naturally to the Dark One, but it seemed his personality here was not much different, on a superficial level, from that of the Dark One.

After finally getting himself ready for the day, finding that he had swapped his wardrobe of leathers and brocade vests for finely tailored suits that were this world's idea of elegance, he headed out of the large Victorian mansion he had been granted in this new land.

For a moment he contemplated taking the car, the knowledge of how to drive it coming easily to his mind but instead he sneered. He would have to use it sometime, but he was not quite ready for that bit of the curse just yet. He had barely trusted horses and carriages in their old world, preferring first to walk and then later to use his magic to transport himself places. Trusting a piece of machinery, which Mr. Gold's memories told him could be unreliable at best and dangerous at worst, was not something he was prepared to do at this point.

The town they found themselves in was small, just a little New England coastal town. It was an easy walk, even with the constant irritation of his ankle and the need for a cane, to the center of town. He paused outside his shop, smiling at the view through the window. The objects there were easily recognizable, some that had graced his castle, others he was sure came from the residents of this new town.

He put his hand on the door knob to open it when he felt a hand come down on his forearm. Turning, he met the eyes of the Queen-turned-Mayor and his face split into a smile, a dark grin he couldn't stop from spreading out over his features. "So I see you won, _Mayor_."

"I have, _Mr. Gold_." Her own smile was edged in the same darkness that his was, tight-lipped, more a sneer than an expression of good will.

"A nice touch, that one," he commented, as if they were exchanging pleasantries about the weather, his voice carefully modulated to show no emotion.

"I thought so. I hardly recognized you. You look so…"

"Indeed." He refused to say more, to satisfy her curiosity. If she did not know his origins, the humble coward he had once been, he was not going to share such information with her. "Now if you excuse me, _Madame_ _Mayor_, I find I have many things to do."

He set foot in the shop, breathed in a scent that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and made his way to the back room. He kept his office there and he knew that sitting there, collecting dust in the corner, was one of his spinning wheels. It was the small one that he kept tucked away in the tower room. The larger one from his Great Room was hidden in the basement of his home, a place of refuge, a hobby that none really understood in the Enchanted Forest and would seem even odder here in this modern-day world.

It was still where he did his best thinking and so he pulled it out, dusted it off, and sat down. Here his spinning would require wool, not straw, and the result would be thread, not gold. But still, just the act of feeding the wool through the machine soothed him, allowed his mind to wander and sort out the best way in _this_ world to go about finding his Belle.

* * *

The memories he had been given indicated there was a library in the town, kept by a doddering old fool of a man. It seemed to be the best place to begin and he headed there as early in the afternoon as possible.

As luck would have it, the elderly gentleman was out and the son, a man still older than Mr. Gold's physical years, was at the front desk when he walked in. The man stood quickly, smoothing down the front of the gaudy sweater he wore, and faced him. He could see the nervous sweat across his brow. "Mr. Gold." He stuttered over his name. "We paid the rent last week."

A tight-lipped smile crossed Rumplestiltskin's face. Ah yes, the _rent_, the one reason he had for going out into public in this little town. "I'm not here for the rent."

He could see the man breathe a sigh of relief before his gaze turned quizzical. "Then…"

"You keep the newspapers of this town?"

The man responded in the affirmative and Rumplestiltskin requested a table out of the way and the last three weeks worth of local papers. It had taken Regina nearly a month to decide to cast her curse, to sacrifice her father for her revenge.

He was sure that someone appearing in the woods, confused and talking of another world, would have attracted _some_ sort of notice. At least a back page story would have been told, especially as she had no relatives in this world.

Or didn't, at the time she went through. Regina's curse would have brought her father with it. Her only family member would be here now, though there was no guarantee he was even aware he _had _a daughter. He knew his name was Moe French here in this new world. He knew he ran a flower shop that was falling on hard times. He knew that as Mr. Gold he had been close to foreclosing on the man. As Rumplestiltskin that bothered him only a little bit. Belle's father had not been a bad man, but he was far too easily swayed to do things that tore apart his daughter's life.

When the man dumped the papers on the desk and disappeared again, he sighed. They were obviously kept in complete disarray, probably shoved into some bins and left there to rot. There was no order, no rhyme or reason to the layout of them.

It took him some three hours to get through them all, carefully flipping pages, folding them back, reading every tiny bit of print for some small story about Belle's being found.

There was nothing.

With a snarl he swept the mess off the desk. Leaving it in an unorganized pile on the ground, he grabbed his cane and strode back to the front desk, calling for the librarian on the way.

The older man rushed out, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. "Mr. Gold."

"There was nothing there." He leaned forward and grabbed the man by the front of his sweater.

"I…I'll just get some other newspapers then shall I?" After being released, the man tripped over himself to rush to the back and find more.

Rumplestiltskin returned to his now-clear desk and after rubbing the bridge of his nose, stretching a bit, delved back into his search.

The print was starting to get to him, the headache he started with spreading across the middle of his forehead. His forefinger and thumb were covered with black ink, his back ached, his ankle was throbbing. It seemed the good town of Storybrooke was about as dull as one could get. So far the biggest news he had come across was the mystery of whose dog impregnated Mrs. Patten's poodle.

_Not much creativity there, Regina_. He had expected little else out of his former apprentice. She could make their lives unhappy, but she would never be creative enough to make them truly miserable. Oh, she had so much she could have learned from him, had he bothered to teach her. Or had she bothered to ask. There was a time he was truly devoted to her education in the dark arts. Then there was Belle and he had all but abandoned Regina in the intervening time.

Finally, some five hours after he had begun searching he found a small article on page ten of the newspaper of a nearby town. _Jane Doe found wandering forest_. There was little in the article, not even a picture. It told of a couple who were hiking in the woods and rescued a woman dressed in a fancy gown who they found wandering the forest. The woman's name was not listed, nor was any further information.

It seemed a dead-end until he went through subsequent papers and found related small articles on the inner pages of the papers over the next week. It seemed that Belle had indeed given her name and so here in this world they were calling her Belle March. The reporter admitted no one knew if that was her real name. Her likeness did not match any missing person reports. Her name was not on any missing persons lists. The final article asked that anyone who had any information on her come forward.

It had a photo, grainy and cheap, but a photo nonetheless. It was most certainly Belle, though her normally neat hair was in disarray and her eyes looked wild.

"I'm sorry Belle," he whispered to the paper.

"D'you know her?" The librarian's voice intruded on his thoughts, loud and a bit brash. He flipped the paper over and turned to the man with a glare.

"No."

A moment later he was striding out of the library, the paper tucked up under his arm, a stolen relic from a library that didn't truly exist.

He had plans to make.

* * *

Belle, as it turned out, had been taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Warren. There was little information on what happened to her past being taken there, but he gathered she was being kept in the psychiatric ward for observation. The few articles he could find on her indicated they were concerned about her mental health, that she thought she was from another world. One mentioned her calling for fairy tale characters when she was found and he cringed.

He knew who she was calling for.

He found it strange that somehow he and the others had made it into this world's cultural history as myths, legends and stories. He wasn't sure if he should be thankful or not that this world seemed to have turned him into some three-foot-tall gnome with a penchant for stealing babies. _Three feet tall_. He had grumbled at that. _I'm short, but not _that_ short…_

Settling at the desk in the back of his shop, he knew he had a bit of work ahead of him. None had, of course, come forward to claim Belle as a relative, a friend, as anything. She had been alone in the hospital since her discovery over three weeks ago, locked up in some ward where people no doubt poked and prodded her, tried to figure her out. He knew she'd be frightened, confused, perhaps even a little bit angry.

He couldn't blame her for the last one. He had told her to run. She had done as he asked and ended up _here_.

But he would come for her soon. And they could begin a new life here, in whatever world this was. If he delved far enough into his memories he could come up with names for the place he lived, things he knew about it. Belle would know none of it, of course. He had Regina's curse to thank for his knowledge of this world. Belle had been transported without such a safety net in place. There was much he had to teach her, much he would love to teach her, giving her the knowledge for real that he had learned from a curse.

It was an exciting prospect, one he didn't even know he was looking forward to until just that moment.

First, though, he had to arrange things. This had to go off without any sort of hitch. There was paperwork to create, hands to grease. He'd love nothing more than to storm the place, play Prince Charming to the damsel in distress, though with less obtuseness and more finesse than the prince in their land. But he also knew how that would go in this world where paperwork was important, proof was important, and where guns had replaced magic.

He settled into his seat, pulled out a notebook, and began to jot down all that he needed to take care of before he could even set foot in the hospital. The list was daunting, but eminently manageable for one of his reputation and wealth. Nothing he did would be legal, not exactly at least, but it would appear so to those in charge.

And if they were to ever discover the deception, he would have disappeared, no trace of him to be found in the world. Truly, Mr. Gold only existed in Storybrooke, a town that was not even on the map for the state of Maine and not one currently anyone could get to.

Soon he would rescue Belle from her hospital prison and together they could begin the search for his son.


End file.
